A Halifax-area man has had a slew of charges against him stayed after a judge concluded he was the subject of an illegal strip search by Halifax Regional Police.
Judge Alonzo Wright issued the stay in a ruling he delivered Wednesday in Halifax provincial court.
Dante Warnell Cromwell, 26, was facing more than 20 charges, including assault, drug trafficking and various firearms offences, stemming from an April 16, 2023, incident that Wright described as a case of “extreme road rage.”
“I remind myself that the burden here is on the Crown to show that there was reasonable and probable grounds to conduct the most intrusive and degrading search available to the police,” Wright said.
He raised a number of issues with the search, including the fact there were few notes kept by any of the officers, there were four officers present and the door to the room was left open.
The judge is doing his job. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (sect. 24) forbids the use of evidence obtained by violating a Charter right in court. The right violated in this case would be “security of the person” in sect. 7. The cops knew this, or should have—“fruit of the poisonous tree” isn’t exactly an obscure legal concept, and is something they need to understand to do their jobs, so I assume it’s taught in law enforcement courses. So the evidence being thrown out is 100% the cops’ fault.