Pubdate: Fri, 10 Feb 2012
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2012 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Authors: Timothy Appleby and Kim Mackrael

JUDGE BLASTS PEEL POLICE OFFICERS IN COCAINE CASE

A group of Peel Regional police officers "essentially colluded and
then committed perjury en masse," in their handling of a drug case
that began more than two years ago, a judge has found.

Tan-Hung Dinh, now 28, was arrested and charged with possession for
the purpose of trafficking after a 2009 sting operation at a
Mississauga motel. Police said they found nearly a kilo of cocaine in
Mr. Dinh's car and another two kilos when they searched his house.

Although Mr. Dinh pleaded guilty to trafficking the cocaine found in
his car, an Ontario Superior Court Justice ruled on Friday that he
will face no jail time, in part because the officers who arrested him
and searched his home violated his Charter rights. The judge said the
offence would normally result in a sentence of five to eight years.

"The police showed contempt not just for the basic rights of every
accused but for the sanctity of a courtroom," Justice Deena Baltman
wrote in giving her reasons for Mr. Dinh's conditional sentence. She
said the officers' misbehaviour "strikes at the heart" of justice
administration and undermines society's confidence in police and the
courts.

In early September 2009, an undercover police officer arranged to meet
Mr. Dinh in a motel room, ostensibly so the officer could buy a large
quantity of cocaine. When Mr. Dinh arrived, he was pulled inside the
room by several officers and beaten, the judge found.

Mr. Dinh told court that five or six officers punched and kicked him
for about two minutes, and that at one point one of them climbed up
onto the nightstand and tried to jump on him (he rolled clear). They
also interrogated Mr. Dinh without a lawyer and ignored his requests
for medical attention, the judge found.

The officers denied using any more force than was necessary to make
the arrest.

After finding nearly a kilo of cocaine in Mr. Dinh's car, several
officers searched his house without a warrant, where they found two
more kilos, together with an ecstasy-pill press, more than 2,000 grams
of ecstasy and assorted drug paraphernalia.

When drug-trafficking charges were subsequently laid, Mr. Dinh sought
to have them stayed, on the grounds that his Charter rights had been
violated.

"He has always admitted that it was his drugs. This case was never
about whether they belonged to him," Mr. Dinh's lawyer, Leora Shemesh,
said on Friday. "For my client, it was about [the fact that] they
violated [his] rights by the way in which they dealt with him."

Last fall, Judge Baltman ruled that she would not stay the charges,
because they were too serious. At the same time, however, she said the
evidence found in his home was inadmissible because police had not
obtained a search warrant first and subsequently lied about it in court.

The officers said they found the drugs in Mr. Dinh's home only after
obtaining the warrant, a claim the judge said was "designed to mislead
the court."

She concluded that Mr. Dinh's rights had indeed been disregarded, in
three different ways.

First, the level of force used by police in the motel room was
"excessive."

Second, Mr. Dinh was denied access to a lawyer after he had been
grabbed and dragged inside the motel room, and it was not clear that
statements he made there were given voluntarily. As such, they were
deemed inadmissible as evidence.

Third, Peel police had no search warrant when they descended on his
house. In some circumstances, a warrantless search is legally
permissible, the judge noted, but this one was not.

On Friday, Judge Baltman handed down a conditional sentence of two
years less a day, with the first year to be spent under house arrest.

Judge Baltman said she recognizes that police have to exercise
discretion in difficult and changing circumstances, but said in this
case, the officers' treatment of Mr. Dinh and their decision to lie
under oath was "calculated, deliberate and utterly avoidable."

Mr. Dinh has been under house arrest for the past two and a half
years. He had no criminal record before the offence, has complied with
his bail conditions and maintained a job, factors the judge said also
played into her decision to issue the conditional sentence.

After a publication ban was lifted in the case Friday afternoon, Peel
Police Chief Mike Metcalf announced that an internal inquiry into the
actions of the five officers, launched last September by the
Professional Standards Bureau, was under way and would continue.

In the meantime, all five remain on active duty, Chief Metcalf said in
a news release. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.