13 September

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Immediate Roadside Prohibition in Port Moody

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In you were issued an Immediate Roadside Prohibition in Port Moody from June 15 until today, you should give us a call. As CTV has reported, we obtained records through a Freedom of Information request from the Port Moody Police. The records show that the Port Moody Police have been providing false information to the Office of the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles concerning the maintenance of their Approved Screening Devices. Each month the officer who completed the Certificate of Qualified ASD Calibrator would simply record the annual service expiry date for each device as one month in the future. Obviously, because it...

13 September

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Lawyer wants Port Moody drunk driving bans overturned

Posted by Paul Doroshenko

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A Vancouver lawyer is calling for all Port Moody impaired driving bans issued since June 15 to be overturned, CTV’s Investigators have learned. Paul Doroshenko recently won a case for a client who failed two breathalyzer tests in that Metro Vancouver municipality in August. Doroshenko reviewed maintenance documents for the screening devices that registered a fail and found that the police officer had changed the service expiry date for them. Through a freedom of information request, Doroshenko obtained the documents for all the Port Moody devices and found discrepancies in all the service expiry dates. He says that casts doubt on all...

11 September

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Standard police interrogation procedure

Posted by Paul Doroshenko

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We regularly see standard police interrogation procedure that in our opinion would shock the good thinking people of Canada if they only knew about it. An Alberta court decision which provides a good example of standard police interrogation procedure has just made the news and it's worth a read. See: R. v. Chapple, 2012 ABPC 229 The decision is interesting for a number of reasons, not the least of which is as a cautionary example of how the police can obtain a false confession. Cops and Government dislike lawyers because lawyers help people In our day to day practice it is clear to us...

07 September

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90-day IRP win rate

Posted by Paul Doroshenko

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We were curious about the 90-day IRP win rate so we made a request for the statistics pursuant to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Months later, well after the information could be used by the Court, they sent us the stats. The fact that they held onto it so the Court wouldn't have a chance to look at it is disturbing. What is also disturbing is what the numbers reveal as we go through them. As most readers of our blog know, 90-day Immediate Roadside Prohibitions, also known as IRPs or Automatic Roadside Prohibitions or ARPs, are...

04 September

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Some stats on disputing a Warn IRP

Posted by Paul Doroshenko

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If you are thinking about whether you should be disputing a Warn IRP, or whether you made a mistake by not disputing a Warn IRP, we have some stats for you to consider. Back in January of this year we made a Freedom of Information request for stats that the OSMV had collected concerning the Immediate Roadside Prohibition (IRP) scheme. We knew that they had this information right in front of them in some computer program, but because we did not identify the specific documents, they decided to not respond to us in the usual course. You can understand why we...

03 September

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Send your kids to jail

Posted by Paul Doroshenko

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As the summer wraps up and your children return from camp, this is a good time to let you know that next summer, when your child is 18, you won't have to pay to send them anywhere. This is because the Harper Government is going to send your kids to jail. Here's how it works: On November 8, 2012, the Harper Government's new minimum sentencing provisions for drug offences come into force. So if a person is caught and convicted of a drug offence from that date onward, they will face minimum punishment under the new law. What is the punishment? If...

02 September

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Deceived by the government

Posted by Paul Doroshenko

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People being deceived by the Government of BC

We have been contacted by a few people recently who told us that they have been deceived by the Government and consequently they lost their Immediate Roadside Prohibition (IRP) review hearing. They're angry and they want to do something about it. And we're sympathetic. What these people are telling us is that they received a 90-day IRP and they wanted to dispute it because they felt that they were not guilty or that the police made mistakes that should cause the prohibition to be lifted. Doing their due diligence, they researched the matters on the internet, including the BC Government website. The...

27 August

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False positives for alcohol on an ASD

Posted by Paul Doroshenko

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False positives for alcohol due to mouth alcohol

Quite often using Alco-Sensor IV DWF Screeners in our office we obtained false positives for alcohol. What happens is that a drinking subject blows, and quickly thereafter a non-drinking subject is tested and the unit provides a reading indicating some amount of alcohol. In other words, the unit is either malfunctioning or it has retained alcohol in the sample chamber. The problem with this is that the alcohol from the later sample will simply combine with the alcohol from the first sample. And the danger is that a person who has had nothing to drink may be called a liar for...

24 August

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Appealing IRP update

Posted by Paul Doroshenko

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IRP update for those who received Immediate Roadside Prohibitions

We've been holding back on an IRP update for a few weeks because it's important to protect the position of our clients. Many people follow our blog, including people who lament and oppose our efforts to expose the system. So we try to balance the need to keep our cards close and keep people informed. And our supporters need to recognize that we are advocates, and we try to be careful to use what we know to the greatest effect. Which means sometimes we wait to see how things are playing out, sometimes we speak out right away and sometimes...

20 August

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Standard police procedure

Posted by Paul Doroshenko

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As criminal lawyers we have seen many cases where people have been treated terribly by the police. We've come to see this as standard police procedure, although any police force would understandable deny this. However, from time to time it gets on the news, usually when there’s someone who manages to catch the police in the act with a video camera. Such was the case late last week when a member of Vancouver's finest, i.e. the Vancouver Police Department, gratuitously kicked a suspect in the chest. You can watch the video on CBC's website. You should watch the video. The suspect is handcuffed,...