Pubdate: Mon, 14 Nov 2005
Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
Copyright: 2005 The Ottawa Citizen
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326
Author: Lawrence Greenspon
Note: Lawrence Greenspon is president of the Defence Counsel 
Association of Ottawa.

THE PUBLIC SHOULD EXPECT BETTER FROM THE POLICE

Police Chief Vince Bevan's recent comments ("Bevan defends police in 
'gang boss' probe: Chief says judge who threw out case didn't have 
full story," Nov. 2) about Judge Hugh Fraser excluding evidence 
gathered by police using an improperly obtained wiretap are far more 
troubling than the result of the ruling.

Chief Bevan claims the judge did not have the full story, despite the 
obvious fact that the trial judge heard every minute of the court testimony.

It was the chief who was not present for a single moment of the 
evidence being presented.

If he had been present, Chief Bevan would have realized that the 
alleged good faith of his officers was debated and then rejected by 
the trial judge.

It is almost a quarter of a century since the Canadian Charter of 
Rights and Freedoms became law. The purported good faith of police 
officers as a justification for rights violations is an argument that 
is happily beginning to wear thin.

How long must the public wait for the remaining few police officers 
to learn that misleading judges, using excess force, investigating 
without reasonable and probable grounds and other improper police 
practices are not going to be excused as either ignorance or 
malevolence disguised as good faith.

The wiretap-approval process, like that used for search warrants, has 
always been an anathema to our judicial system. The applications take 
place behind closed doors. The police are sometimes understandably 
but unfortunately overly zealous in their attempts to get their 
requests approved. There is no one in attendance to present the other 
side of the story, as is the case throughout the rest of our 
adversarial justice system.

Search warrants and wiretaps allow such invasive surveillance that 
they have to be pre-authorized by the court. This protection of our 
freedoms and privacy is a good thing. The court can only grant these 
extraordinary powers to search, tap, and monitor on the basis of 
sworn police affidavits. Judges have to be able to count on the 
police making honest and full disclosure of their investigations 
before granting a search warrant or a wiretap.

In the same breath as he claimed there is an information gap, Chief 
Bevan said he is going to follow through and determine that the 
federal Crown had full information. Perhaps the chief would have been 
wiser to do that before criticizing any supposed gap between the 
federal and provincial Crowns. Maybe the follow-through should have 
taken place before, when questioned by the Citizen editorial board, 
he made a knee-jerk attempt to support his officers.

The claim of lack of communication between two different 
jurisdictional agencies is a favourite old Ottawa game that does not 
succeed in this case.

By speaking out without having heard the evidence and without knowing 
whether there was any gap, the chief has done a great disservice to 
the court and the Crown, by undermining, in the public's eyes, the 
integrity of both.

The chief should have responded to the judicious ruling by providing 
for better officer training, as was suggested by the defence counsel, 
Susan Mulligan. This additional training would emphasize the 
importance of candid disclosure in requests for wiretaps or search warrants.

Instead, Chief Bevan says he is satisfied that his members acted in 
good faith and that the evidence before Justice Lynn Ratushny 
"indicated quite clearly that at that point in time, this gentleman 
was no longer a suspect in the murder investigation."

Gang violence is a serious problem in Ottawa and if the Nnanyere 
Obiorah case is an example of why certain individuals are not 
successfully prosecuted as the community should expect, perhaps the 
chief should look in a mirror for the explanation.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman