Pubdate: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 Source: National Post (Canada) Copyright: 2008 Canwest Publishing Inc. Contact: http://www.nationalpost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286 Author: Janice Tibbetts, Canwest News Service Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/af.htm (Asset Forfeiture) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/trash HIGH COURT TO CONSIDER IF POLICE CAN SEIZE TRASH Household Waste Led To The Arrest Of Calgary Drug Dealer OTTAWA - The Supreme Court of Canada is about to tackle trash. One of the most significant cases of the fall session, which begins this week, will be heard on Friday when the bench considers whether police should be permitted to continue their longtime practice of rummaging through garbage set outside for municipal collection. Lawyers for Calgary drug dealer Russell Patrick will argue that coffee grounds, bill remnants, bank statements, empty pill bottles, dinner scraps and other discarded refuse is private information that should be constitutionally shielded from the eyes of the state. "Household waste may disclose a variety of personal information including one's lifestyle choices, DNA, finances, health and identification," lawyer Jennifer Ruttan says in a court brief. Patrick is challenging the power of Calgary police to seize four bags of trash from his property, gleaning enough evidence of drug manufacturing to obtain a warrant to search his home and subsequently charged him with possessing and trafficking ecstasy. A former national swimming star who set a national and a world record, Patrick was sentenced to four years in prison in 2006. He wants the Supreme Court to overturn his conviction on grounds that constitutionally protected sanctity of one's dwelling includes the trash stored in bins outside and that police violated his Charter right against unreasonable search and seizure. The Crown contends Patrick gave up his privacy rights when he abandoned his unwanted garbage, an argument that succeeded in the Alberta Court of Appeal. "The Charter has not transformed the act of putting out the trash into a privileged and confidential communication between householder and garbage collector," lawyers Ron Reimer and Jolaine Antonio say in a written court submission. "To exclude evidence in this case would bring disrepute to the administration of justice by letting a plainly guilty drug manufacturer go unpunished." The Crown asserts that combing garbage for clues is tantamount to "old-fashioned police footwork." The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, one of several intervenors in the case, rejects the argument that picking through refuse is fair game because it has been abandoned, noting in a written court submission that city bylaws nationwide prohibit "scavenging" garbage. Moreover, association lawyers Jonathan Lisus and Alexi Wood warn that allowing police to persist with the practice makes them "free to harvest waste in 'bad neighbourhoods' to build databases of information." But the Crown counters garbage combing "is an unpleasant, time-consuming manual process to which police resources will only be devoted in the course of focused criminal investigations." - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin