Cop sleeping it off wasn't in driver's seat: expert

CBC News
Apr. 02, 2007

A legal expert says a judge's decision to find an off-duty Calgary police officer not guilty of drunk driving has nothing to do with favourtism of police officers and everything to do with the wording of the law.

"A lot of judges would convict in a situation like that, but it is not a slam dunk," said University of Calgary law professor Chris Levy on Friday.

On Thursday provincial Judge Thomas Schollie told an Airdrie court that Const. Ross Hart had good intentions on the night of June 10 and acquitted him.

Hart had been drinking at a friend's house when he decided to drive home. However, the Airdrie court heard that shortly after he took off, he realized he had had too much to drink and decided to pull over and sleep it off.

An RCMP officer found Ross passed out in the car with his head on the driver's seat, along with vomit in the vehicle and beside it. Ross was charged with impaired "care or control of a motor vehicle."

The judge wasn't favouring Ross because he's a cop, but had reasonable doubt because of the way the law is written, said Levy.

"If you're sitting in the driver's seat, it's presumed you had the intention to set the vehicle in motion so you've got care and control. The way this particular individual was positioned, as I understand it, it would be a misuse of language to say he was occupying the driver's seat," said Levy.

"He [was] sprawled very inelegantly right across the front seats of his vehicle."