Canada - Wrong address on property tag

[shrlok]

A friend of mine recently had 2 warrants served for two locations. After geing charged with a few marijuana related charges he recieved his disclosure all 350+ pages of it!


At the end it has a list of all evidance seized called a follow up report.

- For the first location all it has is the street# and street name.

- For the second location it has street #, street name, and city name

The city name is wrong for the second location and different from the search warrant.

Also

At the end of the disclosure there are photo copies of all the evidence tags. This time for both locations they have the wrong city?


How does this affect the case?

[old hippie 56]

Most likely it could contested, sounds like a royal screw-up on the police part..

[terrapinzflyer]

Swims turtle has little experience with Canadian law so any advice should be taken with a grain of salt. But, in the US- if the property is actually eveidence, a good lawyer ~may! be able to get it stricken. If its merely property seized then its most likely irrelevant.
No offence intended- but this is probably a question for a lawyer in your area- not a public forum...

[shrlok]

Ya I understand this question should be to a lawyer here in Ontario and it has been asked to one, just wanted to post here to a little anxious I guess as it's the weekend and no response from the lawyer yet.

shrlok added 1 Minutes and 0 Seconds later...

And yes this is all for evidance I.e plants, shake, computer, cash

[castles]

When i was charged I also recieved the police brief of evidence and my address and a couple of dates were incorrect. I asked my lawyer and he said that it makes no difference to a magistrate. it doesn't matter what date or where it happened because i still did something wrong. it is also just the brief of evidence ...

so in court it is likely that the prosecution will have their act together and will not mistake an address again and even if they get the city wrong it's really not a big deal (they won't drop charges because they mistake hollywood with LA)

in my opinion the charges are NOT just going to vanish because of this small mistake.
You state that only the city name is incorrect?...not really a big deal in the eyes of a court and it's not going to be big enough for your friends charges to be dismissed.

Most likely your friend will have his case heard in front of a magistrate? Just remember that if your friend pleads guilty then the magistate doesn't even hear about all the nasty and possibly very incriminating evidence that the prosecution has against your friend, and hopefully he can get some leniancy.

I am of course assuming that the search warrant was all legit? and your friend was actually searched for a reason. because if his addresses were searched mistakenly because of a wrong address on some police document then there is no doubt it can be dismissed. however you state that two of his adresses were searched? so i doubt very much that the police have your friend mistaken with someone else.

hope all goes well anyway.

[shrlok]

Yes it seems the search warrant was all good, the lawyer is still looking at it. He has one issue with it that there was a conversation between the justice and a peace officer where the justice says he will have his warrant at a certain time, before they have even looked at the application for a warrant.


Back to the evidence tags

They say

Seized from:
Address: This is where the address is wrong, does not match the warrant.


So the police have evidence bags in there vault labeled with an address that does not match the warrant, how can that just be a small issue?

[terrapinzflyer]

Originally Posted by shrlok

Back to the evidence tags

They say

Seized from:
Address: This is where the address is wrong, does not match the warrant.


So the police have evidence bags in there vault labeled with an address that does not match the warrant, how can that just be a small issue?

May depend on how much other info is on the tags and correct. Also- is it just the wrong city? in other words- street address/ house numbers are correct?

Mistakes happen, and in the US at least there has been a push to not throw out cases on mere technicalities when the evidence is strong and there is no indication of police wrongdoing.

Remember- it does cut both ways- would swiy want someone who had committed a crime against you to walk solely because of an honest mistake made by an overworked/underpaid cop?

Swims turtle wishes swiy's friend the best of luck.

[castles]

Originally Posted by shrlok

So the police have evidence bags in there vault labeled with an address that does not match the warrant, how can that just be a small issue?

It's a small issue because it has no legal consequences on your friends case...
Why would it? The simple clerical error was made AFTER the evidence was already 'legally' seized from your friends correct address.
Does having the incorrect address on the brief of evidence unfairly increase the case the police have against your friend?...NO
Does it negativly impact your friend?...NO
Does having the wrong address on the brief of evidence mean the police conducted an illegal search and seizure?... NO
Sure, cases are thrown out because of simple clerical errors on search warrants, but that is because they are serious legal documents which give the police powers that they usually do not have, they need to be correct to ensure the police do not abuse their powers and enter any property and take anything. An evidence tag really isn't the most powerful legal document in the world.
I'm sure the police will notice this mistake, and if they can be bothered they will probably correct it.
Again, all the luck to your friend