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Canada: in your face, justice !!!!
| quote: | Everyone remembers when 15-year-old Jane Creba was murdered on Boxing Day 2005, caught in a deadly crossfire between two rival gangs in the heart of downtown Toronto, while shopping with her sister.
Last week, the final two of the four men convicted in Creba’s murder were sentenced.
So, did we get justice?
You decide.
Tyshaun Barnett and Louis Raphael Woodcock, both 23, were convicted of manslaughter in Creba’s murder and on four counts of aggravated assault for wounding others.
At the time of the shooting, both were under court orders not to possess firearms due to their criminal records.
On Thursday, Superior Court Justice Gladys Pardu sentenced each to 12 years in prison for manslaughter and eight years concurrent for the aggravated assaults.
But with two-for-one credit for four years spent in pre-trial custody, plus parole, they could be free in just over two years.
Meanwhile, Jorrell Simpson-Rowe, 17 at the time of Creba’s murder and sentenced as an adult under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, was convicted of second-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault in December, 2008. He got life with no chance of parole for seven years, meaning he’ll be eligible for parole in December, 2012.
Jeremiah Valentine, 27, who “very likely” fired the bullet that killed Creba — which couldn’t be determined conclusively — pled guilty in December, 2009 to second-degree murder. He was sentenced to life with no possibility of parole for 12 years.
So, less than five years after rival gangs opened fire near Yonge and Dundas on the busiest shopping day of the year, murdering an innocent teenager, wounding six others and terrorizing thousands, the longest sentence is, in effect, a minimum of 12 years for the suspected killer.
The other three could all be free by the end of 2012 — seven years after Creba’s death.
This raises the question of why we even bother to refer to “life” sentences in the media, when parole, available even to repeat, violent offenders, renders the term meaningless?
Despite two “life” sentences in the Creba case, no one was really sentenced to “life” in the common sense way people understand that term.
Similarly, the two “12 year” sentences are a mirage.
The federal Conservative government, to its credit, passed legislation earlier this year ending the two-for-one discount for pre-trial custody, except in exceptional circumstances. Judges need to understand the public wants those circumstances to be very exceptional.
That said, the feds have over-reached by calling their law the “Truth in Sentencing Act” because easy parole is still undermining sentencing from the other end of the equation.
“Truth in sentencing” will occur when a judge pronounces a sentence of “life in prison” and it means life. Or when a judge imposes a sentence of “12 years” and it means 12 years, or something close to it, not parole in as little as four.
Until that happens, there will be no truth in sentencing. |
went to buy shoes, dead at 15.
sold guns, stomped guys head and bragged about it. soon in a neighbourhood next to you.
go Canada !!!
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i wanna wipe my ass with mona lisa !!!
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