Pubdate: Fri, 11 May 2012 Source: Regina Leader-Post (CN SN) Section: Front Page Copyright: 2012 The Leader-Post Ltd. Contact: http://www.leaderpost.com/opinion/letters/letters-to-the-editor.html Website: http://www.leaderpost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/361 Author: Heather Polischuk TOP COURT TO HEAR SNIFFER DOG CASE The Supreme Court of Canada will hear a Saskatchewan case involving the use of "sniffer dogs" by police, the court said on Thursday. The case of Benjamin Cain Mackenzie was one of three similar cases decided by the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal heard last May, with the court finding the police had the appropriate grounds in the three separate instances to use sniffer dogs. Those rulings overturned previous findings by lower court judges. The cases all involved incidents where motor vehicles had been stopped on the Trans-canada Highway initially for traffic-related offences with officers soon suspecting the occupants were in possession of drugs. The dogs were subsequently brought in to check for the presence of drugs, which were then located. In Mackenzie's case, he was charged in September 2006 following a search near Caronport. While he'd initially been pulled over for speeding, officers became suspicious Mackenzie had drugs in his possession and brought in a dog to do a sniff search. As a result, a large quantity of marijuana was found in the vehicle's trunk. The case came down to whether police had sufficient objective grounds to reasonably suspect Mackenzie possessed drugs. A lower court judge had found there wasn't reasonable suspicion, making the subsequent search unreasonable and any evidence located unusable in court. The Court of Appeal found otherwise, deciding the reasonable suspicion standard was met and subsequently ordering a new trial. The Crown had argued the trial judges had placed too high a standard on police in determining reasonable suspicion. (Police typically look for evidence that can include combinations of nervousness, intoxication and use of third-party vehicles when trying to determine whether drugs might be present.) "When the standard is reasonable suspicion, the law does not require hard certainty as to the inferences drawn by a peace officer," wrote Court of Appeal Justice Neal Caldwell in the decision allowing the Crown appeal in the Mackenzie case. In a decision involving one of the other two individuals, Court of Appeal Justice Gene Anne Smith wrote standards for reasonable suspicion and the threshold for deploying sniffer dogs are "less stringent" than requirements for establishing reasonable or probable grounds that a crime has been committed. Following those findings, Mackenzie's defence lawyer Barry Nychuk took his client's case one step further, appearing before the Supreme Court earlier this year to ask leave to appeal. The court's decision to hear the appeal was made public Thursday. The Mackenzie case will be heard in conjunction with a similar case out of Nova Scotia involving Mandeep Singh Chehil. A date for the hearing hasn't yet been set. "Basically what I'm seeking is some clarification on the standard of reasonable suspicion and what is a reasonable suspicion, what is a mere suspicion and when can you deploy a drug-sniffing dog ...," Nychuk said. "It's just another step in the law, another progression to provide defence counsel and Crown prosecutors some assistance in differentiating between what is a mere suspicion and what is a reasonable suspicion." - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D