Pubdate: Sat, 23 Jul 2005 Source: Lethbridge Herald (CN AB) Copyright: 2005 The Lethbridge Herald Contact: http://www.mysouthernalberta.com/leth/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/239 Author: Kristen Harding Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?224 (Cannabis and Driving) IMPAIRED DRIVING CONVICTIONS COMPLICATED Proposed Bill C-16 Will Help In Prosecutions, Police Recruits Told The days of stopping an impaired driver and simply getting them to try to walk a straight line or touch their nose to prove they're under the influence are over. Investigating impaired driving cases is extremely complicated and a mistake -- even a little one -- could ruin any chance of a conviction. "I prosecute a lot of murders and most of the murders I prosecute aren't as complicated as criminal driving fatality prosecutions," said Jonathan Hak, a Calgary Crown prosecutor and expert on impaired driving cases. Hak spent the afternoon Friday going over the finer points of impaired driving law with a group of police recruits at the Centre for Advancement in Community Justice. The soon-to-be cops were schooled on everything from the necessary criteria before a breath sample can be collected to the lack of legal action that can be taken to prove a driver is impaired by drugs, not alcohol. "If you have a driver, right now, that is solely impaired by drugs there is no legal mechanism to get blood samples from that person to test," he said. "Drug-impaired drivers are becoming a more frequent phenomenon on our streets and the law hasn't caught up with that yet. I've been a prosecutor for 17 years and I've always lamented that gap in the Criminal Code." But that loophole could soon be no more. Bill C-16, which is before Parliament, proposes to amend the Criminal Code to give police the ability to collect fluid samples for analysis from drivers they suspect are stoned. "It would allow for roadside sobriety testing of drug-impaired drivers and would allow for the taking of blood, urine or other bodily fluids for testing purposes," said Hak. "If this bill makes it through Parliament it, for the first time, will give the police and, therefore the Crown, a tool that we never had before. "There's no political reason not to pass this legislation. The only people who wouldn't like it are drug-impaired drivers." Hak, who successfully prosecuted the case against a drunk truck driver who hit and killed RCMP Cpl. Graeme Cumming and civilian Daniel Entz while they sat in a police cruiser along Highway 3 in 1999, says police have to be more diligent than ever from the moment they pull over an impaired driver until after their testimony in court. "It is so easy to make a mistake," he said, adding even a slip of the tongue could make or break a case. Hak explained a nervous police officer testifying in court could compromise the prosecution's case simply by telling the judge an intoxilyzer was used to analyse a breath sample instead of calling the roadside screening device by its proper name -- Intoxilyzer 400 D. "We lose cases because of this," he said. "Defence lawyers always exploit these gaps." In Alberta, one in 20 drivers involved in fatal collisions is impaired. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek