Nour Marakah was a Toronto firearms trafficker who sent texts to his accomplice Andrew Winchester, basically telling him what handguns to buy. Though the majority of the firearms acquired by Winchester at Marakah's direction "and put on the street" remain unrecovered, two were found by police at crime scenes.
Winchester pleaded guilty to multiple firearms offences in 2014 and received an eight-year sentence.
While legally searching the men's homes, police also seized both their phones and, two hours later, searched them and found the incriminating texts.
Marakah was convicted of various firearm trafficking offences and sentenced to nine years in prison, minus time served in pre-trial custody, in 2015. He appealed, but the majority at the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld the decision. With Friday's decision, he is now acquitted.
What's funny is that a Canadian Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin decided, based on nothing, to invent a brand new human right and let this low-life get off. She invented that a text message is sacred. If you get a text message on your phone, and you show it to the cops voluntarily, unless they have a warrant to view it first it is inadmissible in court. No, I did not make that up:
Interestingly, Judge Malcolm Rowe, who sided with the majority, nonetheless said he shares Moldaver's concerns about "the consequences" of the decision.That means, for example, if a pervert sends text messages to your kid, and you show the kid's phone to the cops, they can't do squat about it."As Justice Moldaver suggests," Rowe wrote, "this would lead to the perverse result where the voluntary disclosure of text messages received by a complainant could be challenged by a sender who is alleged to have abused the complainant."
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