A few questions about Canadian law. One cause of wrongful convictions is misidentification of the perpetrator so I've always wondered if you have the right to refuse to participate in a police lineup. Also if the police have a warrant to search your home, do you have to right to have your lawyer witness the search so that cops don't plant something illegal or do unnessesary damage to your home?

No... they get to do the search the moment they arrive.. without any delay or interfearance.

Cops don't plant stuff... people that have stuff they shouldn't have falsely make that claim all the time however...

The reason is any delay would allow someone to dispose of something they are there to search for or to distract them during their search so they miss something.

No, the police will do the search when they arrive at the home, you do not even have a right to be present. And police really don't plant things anyway.

They can do photo line ups if you will not do a regular one.

Earl, are you asking about a specific circumstance? The "it's not mine, it was planted" argument probably is used in 2 out of 3 arrests. That includes people who are stopped in their motor vehicles.

And, no, the Police don't have the time or the patience (aside from all other factors) to sit around your house while your Attorney gets pulled together and shows up.

The police lineup question was because I was reading about the terrible cases of Anthony Hanemaayer in Canada and David Dowaliby in the U.S. There was no evidence against them but they were convicted of attempted rape and the murder of his daughter respectively. They were both convicted because they happened to fit the description of the perpetrator, and in Dowaliby's case, he had a distinctive nose and mustache and looked almost exactly like a photo of another suspect. It's pretty scary that one can be convicted of a horrible crime with no evidence simply because of mistaken witness identification. Both were eventually exonerated. Being forced to appear in a lineup seems like a violation of the right not to incriminate yourself, but I've heard that you may not be able to refuse if you have been arrested.

There are miscarriages of justice every day - I do see that a line up and bad ID are factors but the question is how to avoid that -

I thought your question was about "planting."