Quote:
Originally Posted by kipperiggy
Could somebody explain why the judge said she had to weigh what James would have gotten the first time around if Fleury and Holt were known victims? Why does that matter? Why can't she throw him away for the max sentence for the crimes against these two new victims?
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The theory, I think, goes like this.
Canada uses concurrent sentences for most offences. This means that if you're sentenced to 30 days in jail on each of four counts of possession of cocaine, for instance, you serve a total of 30 days (bearing in mind you will become eligible for parole much sooner, of course) and not 30 days x 4 counts = 120 days. The fact that you were convicted or plead guilty to four counts will result in a greater sentence than if you were only found guilty of one count will result in a greater sentence (say 20 days for one count, 30 days for all four together) but it's not the case that you simply add the sentence from each count together.
What the judge is saying is that had these two sexual assaults been known when James was originally sentenced, it would have bumped his sentence up a bit from what he actually did receive. James is, in a sense, getting some credit for the fact that he was previously convicted and served time for those earlier known offences. Proceeding in this fashion prevents an offender from being locked up almost indefinitely because his victims come forward one at a time over time rather than everyone coming forward all at once. In this way, the guy who is convicted of sexually assaulting four kids is going to get the same or similar sentence no matter when the victims come forward. To do so otherwise would mean that James would receive a greater sentence because two of his victims came forward much later than the first ones.
If another victim came forward to say that James assaulted him or her just last week, then this would likely be an entirely different story. Rather than getting some measure of credit for time already served, this new instance would probably be treated as a fresh offence and a host of new factors would be at play in sentencing.