A curious case in a courtroom illustrates the fine line the justice system walks when it has the job of drawing a line between civil liberties obligations and the punishment of criminals. It all boils down into deciding the precise letter of the law but to many people it sounds liker splitting straws.
The police became suspicious that two brothers with lengthy crime records were using their car wash business as a front to launder the proceeds of a drug empire they were running. One of the brothers was already the subject of a firearms prohibition order which gave the police wide powers to conduct searches. When a similar order was served on the other brother because of a 2006 conviction for possession of an illegal gun it gave the police a legitimate reason to raid the car wash business.
In August, 2017 officers conducted a raid on the car wash premises and searched the operational area, office, storeroom and toilet without discovering anything of interest. They were about to wrap up the operation when a junior officer asked to search the roof space over the storeroom and his senior agreed.
A short time later the searching officer reached into the space and recovered a lunch box containing two packages of a crystalline substance. One was found to be 154 grams of methylamphetamine and the other 140 grams of cocaine, and the DNA of one of the brothers was found on the lunch box zipper. The find led to appropriate charges being laid.
This week in the New South Wales District court judge Robyn Tupman dismissed those charges on the grounds that the search had been a " reckless impropriety " because the correct search warrant had not been used to conduct the raid. A firearms prohibition order does give police the right to search for firearms, but that does not cover searches for drugs.
It seems this hinged on a comment the search leader made three weeks after the raid in which he admitted that the police had information that drugs might be secreted in the buildings roof cavity, and that was his reason for giving permission for the roof search when it was asked.
Had drugs been found in the legitimate search for firearms hidden on the premises they would have been allowable evidence, but because the police search was drugs oriented and not specifically looking for firearms the search breached the provisions of the warrant.
It is interesting to note that the police have declined to pursue this matter in the appeals court. The man whose DNA was found on that zipper is serving a nine and a half year prison sentence on other charges relating to drug manufacture and firearms possession.
Such is the precision required of investigators who must be sure that their paperwork is correct before conducting field operations !
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