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‘Police cannot break the regulation to implement it.’ Defence lawyer Patricia Brown is proven in entrance of the Superior Court docket constructing in Chatham on this Sept. 17, 2020, picture. A decide in Windsor tossed out a drug trafficking case stemming from a 2020 arrest in Leamington. Photograph by Doug Schmidt / Ontario Chronicle
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In a uncommon transfer by an Ontario court docket, the native Crown’s drug trafficking case towards a Toronto man was tossed out, with the decide who heard the case in Windsor utilizing robust language to slam police for “racial profiling.”
“Anti-Black bias, whether implicit or otherwise, must be denounced as anathema to the rule of law and the integrity of our justice system,” Superior Court docket Justice Martha Prepare dinner stated in her ruling ordering a keep of the costs.
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In November, “as a remedy for breaches of the accused’s Charter rights,” Prepare dinner made an order to exclude proof seized — together with cocaine — from the accused by Leamington OPP after a site visitors cease on the evening of Dec. 8, 2020.
In an 18-page detailed rationalization launched greater than a month after that preliminary ruling, the decide stated excluding “evidence essential to the Crown’s prosecution” meant there was no case left towards the accused.
“You know how rare it is to get charges stayed? But this was so egregious,” defence lawyer Patricia Brown advised the Star.
The case goes again greater than 4 years, when a motorist from the Higher Toronto Space, Steve-Ray Brown, was pulled over in Leamington by two OPP officers on basic patrol within the early morning hours of Dec. 9, 2020. Observing {that a} black BMW was driving gradual for no obvious motive (though they by no means recorded the precise pace), the officers testified later they initiated a “sobriety check” beneath the Freeway Visitors Act.
What was unacceptable on the a part of the officers, Brown advised the Star, “wasn’t the stopping — it was all their conduct after the stop.”
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In her rigorously worded ruling, Justice Prepare dinner concluded that “Mr. Brown has not established that his race factored into the officers’ decision to stop the BMW, but has established that racial profiling tainted the manner in which he was detained, searched and ultimately arrested.”
Whereas suspected impaired driving was the rationale police gave at Brown’s trial for the cease, when it got here to conducting a sobriety test, the decide wrote, “for reasons unexplained, they did not do so.”
A broad and groundless felony investigation … knowledgeable by anti-Black bias
However, “despite these troubling facts, I am not satisfied that the traffic stop was motivated by racial stereotypes or profiling,” the decide wrote. She stated she was “not persuaded” that both officer knew the driving force was Black till he exited the BMW.
What occurred subsequent, nonetheless, is that, “what was intended to be a statutory sobriety check shifted almost immediately into a broad and groundless criminal investigation which I find was informed by anti-Black bias,” the decide concluded.
Brown exited the automobile and was “cooperative and compliant” and, extra importantly maybe, confirmed no indicators of impairment, nor did he exhibit any “dangerousness.” Given the said causes for the cease, the decide stated “one would expect (the officer) to ask Mr. Brown whether he had been drinking. She did not.”
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Patricia Brown (no relation to the accused) advised the Star the officers’ “fixation on my client” and their totally different therapy of the passenger, a white woman, was telling. In contrast to the driving force, the passenger — who was requested by an officer “whether she was being trafficked” — had a pending drug possession cost and was out on bail.
Regardless of the officers’ “stated concerns about officer safety,” neither of those that testified knew the place that woman was “for most of the time” they had been on the 7-11 parking zone the place Brown’s BMW had pulled over, in keeping with the decide.
The best way the white woman was handled by officers in comparison with the Black man “throughout the interaction supports an inference (of) racial profiling,” Justice Prepare dinner wrote.
“If she’d been a Black woman, she would have been handcuffed and arrested like he was,” his lawyer Patricia Brown advised the Star.
The case towards Steve-Ray Brown was heard within the Superior Court docket of Justice constructing in downtown Windsor. Photograph by Nick Brancaccio / Ontario Chronicle
The officers who performed the Freeway Visitors Act cease searched the driving force and found a baggie containing 41.6 grams of crack cocaine. Smelling hashish within the BMW, they searched the automobile, discovering baggies containing 5.4 g of powdered cocaine and 4.4 g of crack cocaine, respectively.
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Steve-Ray Brown went on trial for 2 counts of possession of cocaine for the aim of trafficking. The defence argued Brown’s Constitution rights had been violated in the way in which the proof towards him was obtained and within the method of his therapy.
“This is not a close case,” Justice Prepare dinner’s resolution concluded. “The case law is consistent and clear. A finding of racial profiling will result in the exclusion of evidence.”
Requested whether or not the Crown thought of interesting the decide’s ruling to toss the case, native federal drug prosecutor Richard Pollock advised the Star: “The Crown always considers whether the public interest is achieved by launching an appeal.”
Whereas “it was clear, from the Crown’s position, there was no racial profiling,” Pollock pointed to parts of Justice Prepare dinner’s written resolution to additional clarify the prosecution’s place.
“The Crown denies that any of the stop, detention or search were tainted by racial profiling or infringed Mr. Brown’s Charter rights,” Prepare dinner wrote.
“The Crown submits that the officers exercised valid common law powers of investigative detention, based on reasonable suspicion, that Mr. Brown was an impaired driver … the lawful detention led to a valid and reasonable search of Mr. Brown’s person and vehicle.”
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Justice Prepare dinner concluded: “I cannot accept the Crown’s submission.”
The decide added that the Crown conceded that, “if this Court finds that racial profiling tainted the traffic stop … the evidence seized … should be excluded.”
Steve-Ray Brown (an out-of-town motorist throughout a interval of COVID-19 shutdowns) was not impaired that evening, however what concerning the medicine the patrol officers discovered?
“Police can’t break the law to enforce it,” Patricia Brown advised the Star.
“When is it OK? It’s never OK — this is what Justice Cook said. We all have the same rights.”
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