Pubdate: Mon, 12 Jan 2004
Source: Law Times (Canada)
Copyright: CLB Media 2004
Contact:  http://www.lawtimesnews.com/LawTimMain.html
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3095
Author: Gail J. Cohen

THE DAMAGE IS ALREADY DONE

With all the ballyhoo in the daily newspapers, especially in Toronto, about 
six former members of the city cops' drug squad being accused of taking the 
law into their own hands, there quickly grew a public perception of chaos 
in the courts.

According to criminal law practitioners, that's far from the case. The 
corruption allegations - which eventually led to the six being charged last 
week with 40 criminal counts including extortion, theft, and obstruction of 
justice - have been around since 1995. The RCMP, at the behest of Toronto 
Police Chief Julian Fantino, have been investigating since August 2001. The 
"chatter" about bad cops had been doing the rounds of criminal lawyers' 
Internet listservs and meetings for years before that.

There were a slew of drug cases that had been stayed for "undisclosed 
reasons," says lawyer Paul Copeland. No one was really saying why, but, it 
turns out, about 115 various drug charges were quietly put to rest. "It was 
all pretty secretive." Lawyers had a sense of what was going on, says 
Copeland, they were expecting something. Although, he adds, it's stunning 
that it took this long.

However, as time passed the number of cases still in the system, either in 
the trial stage or with those found guilty of charges arising from the drug 
squad investigations in prison dwindled. The six accused officers haven't 
been actively involved in any court cases for a couple of years, says 
Copeland, and there's probably not that many people left in prison who had 
dealings with either the six charged or four other officers accused of 
being co-conspirators but not indicted.

There may be cases where those who feel they were wrongfully convicted 
because of tainted evidence or investigations are brought to light but 
there'll be no wholesale overturning of convictions.

The one bright spot out of all of this for defence lawyers is that cops' 
credibility has suffered. Copeland points out that at one time judges 
always used to see police officers as 100-per-cent credible. Over the 
course of his 35 years of practice, he's seen that change and after this, 
judges will become even more careful with police evidence. So it'll be 
easier for defence to raise doubts and put forward defences such as "the 
drugs were planted."

The public's concern about criminals getting off has already come true with 
the staying of those 115 charges. It's unlikely that after all this 
publicity there'll be much further impact on convictions in the system or 
how defence counsel do their jobs.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman