Comment & Debate
“Random breath tests: A frightening trial-baloon from Rob Nicholson.” A BCer in Toronto. October 5th, 2009: “this would seem to open up a huge can of legal worms. You randomly pull someone over for a random breathalyzer test, someone that under normal circumstances you have no legal probable cause for doing so. And in that process, while they blow clean you discover they have committed another offense: let’s say, the possession of a small amount of marijuana. Normally, that would be inadmissible because you had no probable cause for the search. But does the ‘random breathalyzer’ law get your foot in the door and make an otherwise inadmissible search become admissible? Would the breathalyzer law be used as an end-run around the wider search laws to widen police powers in ways not intended by the law, and that are contrary to the charter?”