Child porn conviction overturned on search warrant violation

Child porn conviction overturned on search warrant violation

A Saskatchewan man has won his appeal to overturn a conviction for possession of child pornography.

Urbain Morelli was sentenced to 18 months of house arrest in 2005 after police found evidence of child pornography on his computer two years earlier. But in a 4-3 split decision, the Supreme Court of Canada on Friday accepted his challenge that a search warrant for his house had violated his right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. In his ruling, Justice Morris Fish questioned whether Morelli should have faced charges of "accessing" the illegal material as opposed to "possessing" it. He also concluded that police provided misleading information about their evidence when they applied for the warrant to search Morelli's home.

"Justice is blind in the sense that it pays no heed to the social status or personal characteristics of the litigants," Fish wrote in the ruling. "But justice receives a black eye when it turns a blind eye to unconstitutional searches and seizures as a result of unacceptable police conduct or practices."

The RCMP obtained the warrant to search Morelli's home several months after they were contacted by a computer technician, Adrien Hounjet, who had visited the residence to install a high-speed Internet connection several months earlier.

Fish said that the original application for the warrant suggested that Hounjet had actually seen child pornography on Morelli's computer, when this was not the case.

"Mr. Hounjet saw nothing of the sort," wrote Fish. "All he saw were two links labelled 'Lolita Porn' and 'Lolita XXX' in the 'Favourites' menu of the Internet browser."

He said the application for the warrant included "clear and misleading statements," or a "false claim."

"The informant's narrative would have appeared much less sinister -- and much less supportive of the claim that the accused possessed child pornography -- had the (application) included a number of additional facts known to police," said the ruling.

I completely agree with this ruling. If Charter rights are breached on the defendant's part, which is a crucial mistake, his conviction must be overturned. I applaud the Judge's ruling!