The life sentence imposed in December 2021 on Hensley Jean for the attempted murder of Samuel Indig – the first for this type of crime in Quebec – is “appropriate” due to the “particular circumstances of the case”, maintains the Director of Prosecutions criminal and penal (DPCP).
“Nothing in the judgment undertaken allows us to denote an error which would call into question the maximum sentence imposed. […] The sentence imposed was appropriate given the particular circumstances of the case, the trial judge having taken into account all the relevant penological objectives based on the evidence, including the appellant’s prospects for rehabilitation, “insists the lawyer. of the Crown, Mr.e Steve Baribeau, in response to Hensley Jean’s appeal request.
In December 2021, the latter had received the maximum sentence for attempted murder with a firearm: life in prison. It was the first time in Quebec that such a sentence was imposed for this count. Jean had been declared eligible for parole after seven years in prison.
Two years earlier, in June 2019, the main interested party had come close to killing Samuel Indig, a man without history who had just moved in with his family in a peaceful district of Saint-Eustache. Hensley Jean had then “cowardly” shot him in the back in front of his home, before approaching to finish him “in cold blood”, while the victim was helpless on the ground.
Hensley Jean’s gun had finally jammed just as he was trying to finish off his target. It was also a mistake on the person, since the shooter was targeting the former occupant of the house.
In her judgment, magistrate Hélène Di Salvo made a strong plea against firearm-related violence in Quebec. “Gun crimes are a scourge, a societal problem that the courts must denounce in a strong and unequivocal way”, she said, hammering that “the sentence must send a strong message to criminal organizations”.
PHOTO FROM HENSLEY JEAN’S INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT
“Big mistake”
For defense counsel, Mr.e Maxime Hébert Lafontaine, Judge Di Salvo, however, “committed a major error in principle by insisting too heavily and disproportionately on the objectives of denunciation and deterrence in order to send a clear message to criminal organizations”.
The judge is also criticized for having imposed the sentence “as if the applicant had been convicted of murder”. Hensley Jean, moreover, “had no history of firearms or gangsterism” and several of his backgrounds “were distant, even very distant, in time”, the majority of the offenses having been committed “while ‘he was a minor’.
The crown, on the other hand, retorts that the profile of Hensley Jean is “that of a highly criminalized individual with a marked propensity for firearms who holds no job” and who identifies with street gangs “since the age of 13”. “At the time of the attack, the appellant was subject to two firearms prohibition orders. 153 These elements support the judge’s analysis,” insists Mr. Baribeau, calling also to “send a clear message”.
Jean is affiliated with a Montreal North street gang of red allegiance, the Goon Squad. The Crown also recalled that the young man was seen on social networks, “exhibiting a firearm while making certain gestures demonstrating the usefulness of the weapon, thus indicating the glorification and trivialization of firearms”.
With Louis-Samuel Perron, The Press