Truro man to be tried on drinking and driving charges

A Truro man’s attempt to have his breathalyzer readings ruled inadmissible on a Charter of Rights argument has been dismissed.

The result of the provincial court ruling by Truro Judge Al Bégin Thursday, is that charges of failing the breathalyzer, impaired driving and assaulting a police officer by resisting arrest will proceed. Michael Leo Howlett, 60, of Queen Street is to be tried on March 26.

Howlett had sought through defence lawyer Bob Hagell to have his breathalyzer readings disallowed after it was determined that, Blake Wright, the duty counsel Howlett had initially spoken to following his arrest, was at that time under an administrative suspension by the Nova Scotia Barristers Society.

Howlett was arrested shortly after midnight Feb. 12 after police received a complaint of a suspicious person on Truro Heights Road. Bégin said when the RCMP officer arrived at the scene, the driver’s window was down, the car radio was on at high volume and Howlett was allegedly ob- served asleep and slumped over the centre console of the vehicle with his seatbelt fastened.

Bégin said the officer noticed a smell of alcohol coming from Howlett and attempted to place him under arrest, at which point an altercation ensued.

During the arrest Howlett asked to speak with a lawyer and after arriving at the Bible Hill RCMP detachment he was provided access to Wright as duty counsel. Unknown to the police, however, Wright had been placed under administrative suspension on Jan. 5.

“Mr. Howlett expressed no concerns to the police officers on the night and morning in question reqarding the advice that he had received from Mr. Wright,” Bégin said.

After speaking with Wright, Howlett provided two breath samples to the RCMP and was charged with the drinking and driving offences.

In March, however, Howlett received correspondence from Nova Scotia Legal Aid informing him that Wright was not “authorized to give legal advice” because of his administrative suspension.

The Crown had argued during a previous appeal hearing that there was no breach of Howlett’s rights and that because Wright’s suspension was merely administrative it was not a suspension that called his competency into question.

The Crown also argued the exclusion of evidence in a criminal case is “an extraordinary and extreme remedy that should only be done in the clearest of cases”

Bégin ultimately concluded Howlett’s rights had indeed been breached but in balancing out the degree of impact against the importance of the breathalyzer readings to the case, the breach was not sufficient to warrant excluding that evidence.

“Society seeks that allegations of criminal conduct be evaluated and determined on the merits,” Bégin read from his written decision. “However, this must all be balanced against the need to have a system which determines allegations without doing so in a way that undermines the ultimate or long term integrity of the system.

And given the seriousness of impaired driving in Canada where four people per day are killed by impaired drivers, Bégin concluded the overall balancing of the case “does not favour the exclusion of the evidence.”