(Ottawa) The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that a four-year mandatory minimum sentence for shooting a gun at a house is unconstitutional because it could amount to cruel and unusual punishment.
In a related judgment on Friday, the Supreme Court said two other minimum sentences, both involving armed robbery offenses, do not amount to excessive punishment and are therefore constitutional.
The Supreme Court also upheld and expanded the framework for assessing challenges to the constitutionality of a mandatory minimum sentence under the Cruel and Unusual Treatment or Punishment provision of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The nation’s highest court has heard the case of Jesse Dallas Hills, who pleaded guilty to four counts stemming from a May 2014 incident in Lethbridge, Alta.
The accused brandished a baseball bat and fired a big game rifle at a car, smashed the window of an unoccupied vehicle and fired at a house where a couple and their two children were.
Mr. Hills had consumed large amounts of prescription drugs and alcohol, and he said he had no recollection of the events.
He argued that the minimum sentence of four years in prison in force at the time for recklessly discharging a firearm in the direction of a house or other building was grossly disproportionate and therefore constituted cruel and unusual punishment. , under the Charter of Rights.
The sentencing judge at first instance agreed and sentenced Mr. Hills to three and a half years in prison.
But the Alberta Court of Appeal overturned the constitutional invalidity of the four-year prison sentence and reinstated that sentence.
In allowing Mr. Hills’ appeal, the Supreme Court agreed that this four-year mandatory minimum sentence was grossly disproportionate. The highest court recalls that a young person could very well unload a paintball gun, for example, in the direction of a house as part of a game, to pass the time or to make a bad shot.
“The mandatory minimum sentence cannot be justified solely by deterrence and denunciation, and the sentence shows a complete disregard for sentencing standards,” Judge Sheilah Martin wrote on behalf of the majority of the court.
“Mandatory imprisonment would have significant deleterious effects on a young offender and it would shock the conscience of Canadians to learn that an offender can be sentenced to four years in prison for firing a paintball gun at a house. . »
In any case, the Liberal government had already repealed this particular mandatory minimum sentence, among other things, after the hearing of the case in the Alberta Court of Appeal.
Two-step application
In a related judgment involving two other Alberta cases, the Supreme Court said the mandatory minimum sentences for two armed robbery offenses did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
The first offence, robbery committed with a restricted or prohibited firearm, carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison.
The second offense is robbery with an ordinary firearm, which carried a mandatory minimum sentence of four years at the time of the appeal hearing, but that minimum sentence has since been repealed.
A majority of the Supreme Court said Parliament had the right to enact mandatory minimum sentences that signal that disregarding the lives and safety of others in the handling of weapons is simply wrong fire.
There is also a need for general deterrence when someone endangers the safety of others by brandishing a firearm, the court added.
The framework for challenges to mandatory minimum sentences under the Charter’s prohibition against cruel treatment requires a two-step investigation, the nation’s top court has said.
First, a court must determine an appropriate and proportionate sentence for the offense respecting the sentencing purposes and principles of the Criminal Code.
The court must then consider whether the provision in question requires it to impose a sentence that is manifestly disproportionate to the adequate and proportionate sentence, the Supreme Court said.
This exercise involves examining the scope and extent of the offence, the effects of the sentence on the offender, and the sentence and its purposes.
Judge Sheilah Martin said the two-part assessment can focus either on the actual offender in court or on another person in a “reasonably foreseeable” case, such as a youth shooting an air gun or a paintball gun on a house.
“A reasonable hypothetical scenario must be carefully constructed,” she warned.
Butme Martin said the desire expressed by some members of the Alberta Court of Appeal to exclude the use of reasonably foreseeable scenarios from the court’s framework is “completely contrary to both precedent and principle.”