According to caselaw, the smell of burnt marihuana on its own is not enough to for an arrest (one of i'm sure several similar caselaw cases was posted earlier in this thread).

Given how much they found, its probable that there was an odour of fresh marihuana and that it was quite obvious. None of us will know for sure all the details of this case until it goes to court and/or the decision is posted.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...bass/10guy.png
Like a stoned Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Read the case law linked earlier. The court made a decision that burnt marijuana is NOT sufficient grounds for arrest or search.

I'm not arguing that he is guilty of possessing marijuana. The argument is whether his rights were violated in order to find these charges against him.

IF the police officers did in fact smell FRESH marijuana, then there are no problems here.

I'm not trying to vindicate that guy. I couldn't care less about him. My interest is more so on the police officer's side, and whether he actually conducted himself in a lawful manner or not.

Given that "fresh" weed was found in his possession, a LOT of it, and the officer said he smelt it there is NO problem here.

Given the officers reasons to arrest him (which are made 100% valid upon the possession of the drugs) and the suspects resisting the arrest by putting a barricade between himself and the officer with a running vehicle the officer was justified in his actions to remove the suspect from the vehicle that IS in possession of a large amount of drugs.

His rights were not violated by arresting him for a criminal offence. The facts are he was pulled over, officer smelt marijuana, suspect refused to get out of the vehicle, officer removed him and arrested him and found a large quantity of drugs.....now I may not be the most educated person around, but if you think that this is wrong its clear that my education level is higher than some.

Read what sho_BC wrote:

It all hinges on whether the officer smelled burnt weed or fresh weed.

I did. The point is IF only burnt weed was smelled, the officer would not have probably cause to search his vehicle to FIND the fresh marijuana to arrest him.

No it does not, the officer had to have more than just the smell of weed to arrest the person. Such as having previously had charges for possession, failing to comply with an officer etc.
The only thing that came from the ruling was that they can not arrest and search with "smell of burnt" being the only thing that they were working with.

IANAL, but I'm not sure this is a valid argument.

Even if he had a previous charge of possession, not sure that combined with smelling burnt marijuana is sufficient grounds for search or arrest.

Failing to comply with an officer as grounds for search or arrest seems like circular logic. Not talking specifically about this case, but if an officer actually had zero reason to search a vehicle and wanted to search it, but the person refuses, the officer can then search it because the person failed to comply with an officer?

You guys arguing about burnt vs unburnt are kinda forgetting something: he's operating a vehicle.

Unburnt weed in the car = possession
Burnt weed because he smoked it = DUI

Either way he's kinda screwed...

Sometimes when people have nothing to go on... semantics is the only way to argue

Shame on the officer for not specifying the state of weed he smelled. The atrocity is borderline Gestapo :whistle:

You may not be as educated as you seem to think. Like others have said, there may be more to the video, but just going on what is available, it seems as though his section 10(a), and arguably 10(b), rights were violated; I say arguably because there is case law that indicates that 10(b) can be given some time after the arrest is made.

10. Everyone has the right on arrest or detention
(a) to be informed promptly of the reasons therefor;
(b) to retain and instruct counsel without delay and to be informed of that right

The right to be promptly advised of the reason for one's detention embodied in s. 10(a) is founded most fundamentally on the notion that one is not obliged to submit to an arrest if one does not know the reasons for it.

Once an arrest is made, police are given the common law power to make a search incident to arrest, which extends to the vehicle as well. This could be especially important because if the arrest is found to be unlawful, or that the officer infringed the accused's section 10(a) rights, then the evidence could be excluded.

R. v. Greffe (a Supreme Court ruling):
In fact, even if reasonable and probable grounds existed, support for which was not established by the Crown, there is still the admission by the Crown that the police deliberately failed to provide the appellant with the proper reason for the arrest, thereby infringing his rights under s. 10(a) of the Charter. The Crown refers to this as "foolish" and a "blunder", but in fact it amounts to the police deliberately misleading the appellant and using that deception as an artifice to conduct a highly invasive rectal search. Whatever the motives for this deception, it can only lead to an inference of extreme bad faith on the part of the police in that they wilfully circumvented the Charter, a factor which further supports the exclusion of the evidence in this case.

In the above case, although the rectal search was obviously more invasive, the case is analogous in that the search was also incidental to an arrest. The point is, not providing an individual with his 10(a) rights is a violation of his rights and can result in the case being thrown out. Obviously, there could be more to the story, and there probably is; however, a lot of people seem to think that, based on what we can see, no rights have been violated and that is not necessarily the case.

^ does it state that "promptly" means "prior" anywhere?

there is a tedious framework to determine when an accused is detained or arrested, but it doesn't necessarily occur when he is physically constrained. We don't need to go through the analysis here, because the officer explicitly states that the accused is under arrest, so let's assume it begins at that moment. I would imagine promptly means he should have been told as soon as he told the accused he was under arrest or, at the very least, when the accused asked why. After all, one of my bolded points indicates that an individual has the right to know why before he is obliged to comply.

One could easily articulate an urgency in having him exit before going into further explanation by the simple fact that guy's car is still rolling as he's standing at his window (hence the "hit the brakes" direction that was given). He has told guy that he is under arrest and may be concerned that continued useless banter back and forth is a distraction tactic for preparing to take off - which I've had happen to me and nearly had my foot run over. His concern may have been getting guy out of the car and in custody before entering what was sure to be a "i know the law better than you because i've seen some tv shows and read some blogs" debate.

*disclaimer* The above may not be the case, but is plausible and entirely realistic. Again, the only way to find out what actually happened is to wait for the trial and/or the written decisions by a judge.

I concede that you'd likely know the law better than I would. I'm only in my first year of law school and we barely covered 10a, but we went into 10b quite a bit, even though it wasn't on the midterm.

for underscore:
this is what i have in my notes as the test, from r v grant, for when a detention occurs. it's probably more useful for situations in which a detention isn't as obvious.

whether the reasonable person subject to non-legal compulsion would conclude they were detained depends on the following criteria considered in their totality:
i. The circumstances giving rise to the encounter as reasonably perceived by the individual;
ii. The nature of the police conduct, including language, physical contact, place it occurred, presence of others, duration
iii. The particular characteristics or circumstances of the individual where relevant, including: age, physical stature, level of sophistication

I don't and can't ever claim to know everything about the law as its forever changing and evolving. I understand and interpret laws and caselaw a certain way and rely on much more knowledgeable people than myself to steer my understanding and interpretations in the right direction, but in the end, a Judge will be deciding if what I do or don't do is correct.

I dont think anyone could, not even chief justice mclachlin. but like you said, it really will come down to how the court decides the case based on the facts, which are largely unavailable to us. i would imagine that any criminal lawyer worth his salt would be able to argue that, based on the demeanour of the officers and the fact that they were willing to banter to a certain extent, that they didn't seem overly concerned with the possibility of the accused fleeing. they were willing to state that they smelled marihuana, but ignored his question as to why he was being arrested.

in the end, even if his charter rights were found to be infringed, a court could still include the evidence anyways. it just sucks that by the time a ruling comes down, we'll probably all have lost interest or forgotten about this guy.

well, whatever happens, he's gonna use smell proof containers next time that's for sure LOL.

Promptly, not instantly. No officer is required to state the reason for arrest simply because a suspect is requesting it, and in doing so resisting arrest.
Once the situation is handled, they would be informed of the reason for the arrest (of which he was).

And yes, there is more to the story. This person is rather well know the the VPD.....can you guess what for?

Like all law, it is open to interpretation. Copy and paste does nothing for you here. Same applies with obtaining legal counsel. An officer is not required to allow a suspect to make a phone call when he is being arrested.

The number if book smart, life stupid people in this world really astounds me at times. Sad to say, but what you learn in school has little to do with how you live.

Personally, idiots like this guy who have watched one to many US freedom and rights videos on YouTube deserve every little bit he got. He is a drug dealer, not suspected, he is a DRUG DEALER. There is a very good reason why he was pulled over, and it is proven by the fact that he now was drug related criminal charges against him. Lets process that now........ok, so are we all agreeing that he (the suspect) being arrested for dealing and possession of drugs is a good thing?...if the answer is yes then perhaps its time to drop the hypothetical bullshit and realize that they just took a DRUG DEALER off the streets....A+ good job, glad to see real criminals getting what they deserve and not another bullshit "i was speeding, should I dispute it" thread.

you totally disregarded this reasoning used by the supreme court many times, which i kindly put in bold for you the first time:

The right to be promptly advised of the reason for one's detention embodied in s. 10(a) is founded most fundamentally on the notion that one is not obliged to submit to an arrest if one does not know the reasons for it.

How can he exercise his obligation to submit to an arrest when he's already arrested?

I get that it is popular opinion on this board to side with the police. I've been a member long enough to know the consensus here. I am not disagreeing with taking criminals off the streets, but if the police don't follow proper procedure, it could end up doing more harm than good.

edit: you seemed to also ignore the fact that the case law i cited involved an apparent drug dealer as well and because the police didn't provide him with his 10(a) rights, the evidence couldn't be admitted. in the eyes of the law, it doesn't necessarily matter what common sense tells you. life experience can tell you someone is a drug dealer, but the law can say otherwise.

just so we're clear, in the case i cited, they found drugs wrapped in a condom stuffed up the guy's ass. just because you find out that the guy is a drug dealer, or smuggler, after the fact, doesn't mean you can convict him, especially if you didn't properly execute the arrest.
just because the guy is charged with something now, doesn't mean it'll stick after a trial.

^The cop did state that he smells weed and that the subject is under arrest. So I don't really see your point having any merit. So any reasonable person who isn't retarded like the video uploader, would conclude that he is under arrest for the weed until the cops figure out what the fuck is going on.

Are we seriously going to say that the officer smelled burnt weed vs unburnt weed, especially given the large quantity of unburnt shit they found?

unfortunately, that is not the way the law works. smells weed is not a criminal offense and you can't technically be under arrest "for the weed." What if what they smelled was, in fact, medical marihuana? they can't arrest the guy without grounds and then find evidence to pin him on afterwards by "figuring out what the fuck is going on". Just like how the police can't just arbitrarily barge into your house and place you under arrest while they look on your computer for stolen movies and use that to charge you with an offense. Maybe, while they were looking, you were probably thinking to yourself, fuck.. they know about the porn i downloaded last night. A bit extreme of an example, but the point is, we all have rights.

i'm not disagreeing that they should've arrested the guy. They seemed to have the grounds to, but they should have just told him why he was being arrested. Now they give his lawyer a potential defence. Obviously criminals generally know why they are being arrested, but it doesn't matter that he knew. The Charter required the officer to tell him why, in respect of the specific charge, not just, I smell weed. It's a shitty concept when you "know" the guy is guilty, but the Charter is in place for a reason and, as such, it should be followed.

http://i.imgur.com/fKmT2l3.gif

Fuck it, I'm out.

If someone has "medical marihuana", they still need to prove they're legally in possession of their "medical marihuana". The number of people I've come across who are properly licenced can be counted on one finger. Just saying.