CITY OF NELSON NEWSLETTER – 11
CANADA DAY EVENTS LISTING – 20
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, 2008 Established 1988.
SERVING NELSON & AREA
VOLUME 20, NUMBER 30
INSIDE
Easing back Kootenay Lake ferry crew come up with plan to save money, CO2. PAGE 3
CHRIS SHEPHERD
The new Lions Spray Park got a thorough testing over the weekend at the park’s grand opening on Sunday, June 22. Above, Jacob St. Thomas, left, Jasper Ander and Creigh Dillon dodge a bucketful of water at the spray park. CHRIS SHEPHERD
Joe Davidson gets up close and personal with one of the toys at the Lions Spray Park at the park’s opening on Sunday, June 22.
Spray Park opens
Search warrants challenged Don Skogstad finishes arguments in case that could invalidate thousands of search warrants in the Interior by Chris Shepherd
What’s that? It’s the new festival: Nelson’s Summer Performance Festival. PAGE 12 Editorial . . . . . . . . . 8 Street Talk . . . . . . . 8 A&E . . . . . . . . . . . 1 0 Events. . . . . . . . . . 13 Health Pages . . . . 1 4 Classifieds . . . . . . 16 Homes&Gardens . 18
A local lawyer has finished his arguments in a case that could change the way search warrants are handled across British Columbia and invalidate thousands of search warrants issued in the past six years, calling the police investigations and subsequent court cases into question. Don Skogstad has argued the current practice of issuing search warrants from a central office in Burnaby is at odds with the Canadian Criminal Code. This case has been brewing for some time, said Skogstad, who also
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352-0660
402 Baker St. Nelson Trading Co.
defended the owners of Holy Smoke against drug trafficking charges this May. “We waited until we had a perfect case.” The perfect case was a grow-op bust in the Slocan Valley in 2006. At 3:42 p.m. on a Thursday, the RCMP faxed their request for a search warrant to the Justice Centre in Burnaby. Fifteen minutes later they had their search warrant and the next morning police had uncovered a garage packed with a marijuana grow-op. According to documents submitted jointly by Skogstad and the province’s lawyers, the
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RCMP stated they could not appear in person before a judge or justice of the peace because it was “impracticable due to the distance of some 500 kilometers [sic].” The Criminal Code prefers police ask for search warrants in person, Skogstad says, but makes allowances for phone or faxed requests if police believe that it would not be practical to appear personally before a judge. Skogstad says a 2002 decision by the Chief Judge of the Provincial Court of B.C. to locate all justices of the peace in a centralized office
in Burnaby has made it impossible for police to make in-person requests for a search warrant. In his written argument, Skogstad wrote a locally-based justice of the peace is familiar with the geography, may be familiar with the credibility of certain police officers and encourages public confidence in the justice system, Skogstad wrote. The Canadian Criminal Code prefers in-person requests for search warrants, Skogstad says, and changes made by the Chief Justice of B.C. sabotages the intent of the code. “I’ve argued that’s unconstitutional. The
Chief Judge has effectively ignored the federal criminal code.” Lawyers for the province have argued search warrants issued by phone or fax are as good, if not better than those issued in person. The lawyer for the Chief Judge’s office wrote that there are a limited number of justices of the peace and judges hear criminal, civil, regulatory and family matters, the lawyers wrote. “The Chief Judge is best positioned . . . to allocate the available judicial resources as seems best to the Chief Judge to deal efficiently with this huge array of cases.”
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