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Old 09-21-2017, 12:19 AM   #29
MBates
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If you folks want to debate this topic with any credibility, you should adhere to the same standards of truth and accuracy that are expected when speaking about hockey prospects.

This is not a murder sentence. It is a manslaughter sentence. This is not a murder. Nothing anyone says based on a few lines of media reporting (as opposed to the full evidence called in the courtroom) will change that fact.

And before I get criticized because as a defence lawyer I would be expected to defend the so-called joke system I am involved in, I pause to point out that 10 non-lawyer regular layperson members of the community UNANIMOUSLY agreed that this was not a murder but was instead a manslaughter (apparently accepting that the accused's level of intoxication meant they had a reasonable doubt that he formed the intent to commit murder).

Aboriginal sentencing 'Gladue' factors are not a 'free pass' but are federally mandated BY PARLIAMENT (not the judiciary or the lawyers) to be considered in sentencing. Having a generational life-altering cycle of abject poverty and unimaginable abuse as your upbringing (imposed on you by the same government now holding you accountable for behaving badly) is not the same as having a 'bad childhood.'

The judge didn't find 2 years and probation was a fit penalty. He found 10 years was a fit penalty, to be reduced by 2 years to account for the Gladue sentencing factors. Of the 8 years remaining, the pre-sentence custody reduced it to the sentence ordered.

Pre-sentence custody is not remotely the same as post-sentence custody. There are essentially no employment or education opportunities. No treatment or rehabilitative programs. Remand inmates routinely live 3 grown men in a cell designed for 1 - for 23 to 23.5 hours per day.

Alberta remand centres do not comply with the UN Treaty that Canada has signed regarding the standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners (known as the Mandela rules).

If anything is a joke it is that we treat people inhumanely in a way we would never stand for if we saw it happening in another country...but in ours...we just look the other way.

What happened in this case before arrest is beyond tragic. What happened in court was an orderly application of the rule of law. If you are not satisfied with that, your outrage should properly be directed to elected Members of Parliament and not the justice system that is enacting the will of those elected officials.

Oh, and 'near murder' is a sentencing term in prior case law dealing with manslaughter sentences. The judge describing this as a 'near murder' was doing his job, applying the binding legal precedents that dictate how he is supposed to rule.

https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abca/do...95abca196.html

There are many valid areas for criticism and debate in the criminal justice system. It would really be great if those could be addressed and arguments based on false descriptions of cases and the system could be left behind.
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