A Nanaimo RCMP officer is scheduled to appear in court on March 6th as a result of a charge of using excessive force on a 47-year-old woman who was being fingerprinted at the Nanaimo detachment on August 17, 2011. The officer, Const. Derek Brown, had four years of service at the time of the incident and remains on administrative duties pending the outcome of the criminal and code of conduct proceedings. An article about the incident from the Vancouver Sun can be found here.
On Monday morning at the New Westminster Supreme Court, Cpl. Monty Robinson’s defence team brought forward a substance abuse expert to testify that the RCMP officer was suffering from a “severe” alcohol addiction at the time of a crash in 2008 that killed one man. Mr. Robinson’s behaviour following the crash is the subject of the present trial.
Mr. Robinson’s obstruction of justice charge stems from his actions following the accident, which killed 21-year-old Orion Hutchinson. The off-duty police officer left the scene and walked home, which was a short distance away, to return ten minutes later and tell officers that he had consumed two beers at a party earlier and two shots of vodka after the accident when he briefly returned to his house, with the alleged intent that it would make it difficult for police officers to prove that any readings over the legal limit on a breathalizer test were the result of alcohol consumed prior to the accident.
The expert called by the defence, Dr. Paul Sobey, testified that he evaluated Mr. Robinson for several hours in January this year and concluded that his alcohol dependence was “severe” at the time of the accident in 2008. During cross-examination, the Crown prosecutor pointed out that due to acceptance into an undercover officer training course in 2006, Mr. Robinson had to undergo, and passed, psychological evaluation in 2006, 2007 and 2008. The trial continues, and an article on the subject from the Vancouver Sun can be found here.
Pivot Legal Society, on behalf of client Christopher Evans, filed a lawsuit against the City of Vancouver on Thursday, January 26th 2012, for alleged careless and excessive use of a police dog. During the incident in question, which occurred last summer, Mr. Evans was bitten on his right calf and thigh during an arrest, and says that he was not aware he was being pursued by the police until the point of attack. As a result of the incident, Mr. Evans required nearly 100 staples to close the wounds and subsequently lost his job at a warehouse because he could not put weight on the leg for two months. The lawsuit comes a week after Pivot obtained statistics from the Police Complaints Commission that Vancouver accounts for nearly three-quarters of all police dog bite injuries in municipal police districts in the province since March 2010, and that 46 percent of all serious injuries caused and reported by municipal police in BC are caused by police dog bites. Pivot is hoping the lawsuit will prompt the Vancouver Police Department to reconsider the legal society’s prior request to change from a “bite and hold” to a “bark and hold” method. Read articles here and here for more information.
In a decision released January 18th, 2012, the B.C. Supreme Court dismissed an application by Air Canada for declarations that the Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act (BPCPA) is constitutionally inapplicable to them. The application by Air Canada (and Lufthansa) arose as a result of proposed class proceedings on behalf of the plaintiff, Bulent Unlu, and peoples in British Columbia who, when purchasing an airline ticket, were charged a hefty international fuel surcharge that was listed as a tax on airplane ticket invoices, but was not actually remitted to a third-party government agency. Instead, the surcharge was kept by the airlines. The plaintiff alleges that the fuel surchage was falsely represented as a tax on airline invoices, and proposes that this amounted to practice which was contrary to the BPCPA, a B.C. Provincial statue.
The airlines asked for a declaration that the BPCPA is constitutionally inapplicable due to the doctrine of paramountcy, or alternately, the doctrine of interjurisdictional immunity. B.C. Supreme Court Justice Adair dismissed the application. Read the decision and reasons for dismissal here.
Accused cocaine conspirator Wayne Scott testified today at his trial, after an adjournment of almost a month for the case. His council, Jeremy Guild, is arguing that Scott’s statement made to the Surrey, B.C. RCMP detachment should be inadmissible because he did not have proper legal advice before the statement was taken, and because he felt coerced into talking. Scott and his co-accused, Jared Bacon, were charged with one count of conspiracy to traffic cocaine two years ago. Bacon is the boyfriend of Scott’s daughter, Carly, and Scott says he feared Carly would be brought into the investigation if he did not cooperate with the police. The trial brings up issues of ensuring adequate legal advice for those accused of crimes so that they understand the charges against them and their rights during police questioning. Read an article relating to the testimony here.
On November 10th the British Columbia Court of Appeal overturned the trial decision in R. v. Larson, 2011 BCCA 454, and found that a warrantless search and subsequent search under warrant on the appellant’s home were unlawful, and the resulting evidence inadmissible. Mr. Larson was convicted in trial court for unlawfully producing marijuana contrary to s. 7(1) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, S.C. 1996, c. 19.
The initial search of Mr. Larson’s home was prompted by his report to the police, during a paranoid delusion, that he had been the victim of a home invasion. An initial search was undertaken by the police on the strength of this report, without consultation with, or permission from, the appellant, which resulted in the discovery of a marijuana grow operation in the appellant’s home, the police obtaining a warrant, and a subsequent search under this warrant.
The BCCA found that the search was not necessary in order to mitigate some immediate threat to Mr. Larson or the general public, and thus was a violation of Mr. Larson’s s. 8 rights under the Charter. As a result, the subsequent search under warrant was found to be unlawful, and the evidence obtained inadmissible. Full judgment may be viewed here.
In an appeal ruling on October 31 the British Columbia Court of Appeal set aside an award for special costs granted to the Ahousaht Indian Band and Nation by the British Columbia Supreme Court in November 2009. The 2009 ruling ordered that the respondents “have aboriginal rights to fish for any species of fish within their Fishing Territories … and to sell that fish.” That ruling also ordered special costs to the respondents of 85% of their reasonably incurred fees.
The award of special costs was set aside on the grounds that the case did not “rais[e] unique policy considerations that may, in exceptional cases, justify a departure from the ordinary costs rules” and also that the potential pecuniary benefits to the respondents in seeking a right to fish commercially were direct enough to justify pursuit of litigation, in contradiction to the requirement set out by the BC Court of Appeal in Victoria (City) v. Adams, 2009 BCCA 563, that to be award special costs, a successful party may not have a personal, proprietary or pecuniary economic justification for pursuing litigation. The court also concluded that “an award of special costs in this case would open the door to such an award in all aboriginal rights cases.”
The full judgment can be viewed here.
