Pubdate: Mon, 23 Aug 2004
Source: National Post (Canada)
Copyright: 2004 Southam Inc.
Contact:  http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Author: Shannon Kari / CanWest News Service
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

POLICE GIVEN SPECIAL POWERS IN EGLINTON TARGET AREA

A nearly one kilometre-long stretch of a busy Toronto street has been 
designated a target area where police can approach "any person" and try to 
coerce them to sell drugs to an undercover officer.

Normally police must have specific targets. But an Ontario Superior Court 
judge has ruled that because trafficking along a stretch of Eglinton Avenue 
East in the Scarborough area of Toronto was "mobile," it justified random 
stops of people to see if they would sell drugs to undercover officers.

In a ruling that could expand the powers of urban drug squads, Mr. Justice 
Harry LaForme upheld the conviction of a man who sold $40 (less than a 1/10 
of a gram) of crack cocaine to a Toronto police officer. The man, Sean 
Sterling, 23, had argued he was a victim of police entrapment.

But in the ruling released earlier this month, Judge LaForme said police 
must be given "substantial leeway in investigation techniques" because of 
the "social consequence" of trafficking.

In an earlier decision, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in a case 
involving Vancouver's Granville Mall police may target an area instead of a 
specific person and attempt to solicit drug sales if there is evidence of 
trafficking and the area is "sufficiently defined."

In the Ontario case, Judge LaForme accepted police testimony that while 
street-level trafficking is normally "site specific," the practice differs 
in Scarborough.

"In Scarborough it is a more mobile drug trafficking operation though the 
use of vehicles and bicycles," wrote Judge LaForme, who imposed an 
eight-month conditional sentence on Sterling.

During a three-day hearing last month, Judge LaForme heard evidence from 
drug squad officers about attempts to make "opportunity buys" of crack 
cocaine along an 800-metre section of the street.

A Toronto police constable testified while driving he observed a "young 
black male with baggy clothes," walking along the street.

The officer said this description "absolutely matched" his profile of drug 
dealers in the area.

The suspect, later identified as Sterling, was "meandering around, looking 
around and looked approachable," the officer testified. He pulled his car 
into the parking lot of a strip mall, approached the man and said he was 
looking for a "40-piece man-rock."

The officer purchased less than a tenth of a gram of crack cocaine and 
arrested Sterling.

Sterling's lawyer Peter Bawden, who praised Judge LaForme for serious 
consideration of the entrapment argument, noted the judge did not accept 
one officer's testimony that the drug target area on Eglinton Avenue should 
be nearly seven kilometres long.

The defence lawyer also questioned the strategy of Toronto police drug 
squads for a focus on street-level dealers, who are frequently addicts, 
selling small amounts of crack to subsidize their habit. "Police are not 
going after people higher up in the [drug] chain," Mr. Bawden said.

Judge LaForme is reportedly a potential candidate for one of two existing 
vacancies on the Supreme Court of Canada. He is known for writing an 
Ontario Divisional Court ruling, later upheld by the Ontario Court of 
Appeal, that permitted same-sex marriages.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager