B.C.'s highest court has overturned the drug-trafficking conviction of a man found with 34 pounds of marijuana in his trunk, ruling that Mounties did not have reasonable grounds to send a drug-sniffing dog nosing around the car.

Sebastien Payette was driving on Highway 3 near the small West Kootenay town of Midway when he was stopped at a random RCMP traffic checkpoint on March 30, 2006.

According to court documents, the cops who pulled him over noticed Payette's pale and shaky demeanour, his scruffy beard, dark hoodie and the mess of take-out containers and coffee cups on the floor of his car.

They also discovered that he was not the owner of the late-model Volvo, and could see a radar detector inside the car.

Based on these observations, the officers brought over a drug-sniffing dog named Otis to inspect the outside of the car. Otis indicated that there were, indeed, drugs inside the vehicle, and when the officers popped the trunk, they discovered a suitcase with 34 one-pound bags of marijuana inside.

During Payette's trial, a provincial court judge found that the cops' observations of Payette and his car, taken together, amounted to acceptable grounds for bringing in a drug-sniffing dog.

But the B.C. Court of Appeal contradicted that decision on Friday.

The police officers' individual observations of Payette -- his unkempt appearance, messy car and shakiness -- didn't add up to enough evidence for a drug investigation, Judge Kathryn Neilson wrote in the court's decision.

"Each of those factors taken on its own is innocuous and characteristic of many citizens driving the highways," she wrote.

In overturning Payette's conviction, Neilson went on to say that his right to privacy was breached during the search.

"(Payette)'s privacy interest in the contents of his car while travelling on a public road is lower than the privacy interest attached to his home or office. Nevertheless, he and the rest of the travelling public have a significant interest in being free to drive on public roads without being subject to unlawful vehicle searches," the judge wrote.

Mounties respond to decision

West Kootenay region RCMP Sgt. Darryl Little told ctvbc.ca that although police may be frustrated to see their hard work come to nothing in cases like this, they have no choice but to learn from their mistakes.

"The court makes the decision and we have to learn from it, abide by it," Little said. "Even if there is some frustration, we have to learn from it."

He said that although he wasn't aware of the specifics of Payette's arrest, the Mounties will examine what went wrong in this investigation.

"If we've made some errors, it becomes an issue to address in training."