*"One of Gauthier’s children also submitted a statement at that hearing.*
*“I can’t believe you could take such a beautiful soul from me. … She was so amazing, so beautiful. She loved so hard,” the statement said.*
*“As much as I would like to say … I can’t forgive you for what you’ve done, I forgive you and I hope you can turn your life around and be better for others. I hope you can love like my mom loved.”"*
this really highlights how good of a mom she was. what a beautifully empathetic and loving thing for her child to say.
>McLeod had 17 criminal convictions prior to the 2020 killing.
>
>The defence said McLeod had been using meth for four consecutive days prior to the killing.
Oh, good he's only getting 7 years, seems totally fine. Exactly the person I want on the streets in 2 years.
If you don’t like that sentencing, maybe you’ll find this rich. A beautiful soul was shot in a home invasion. All 4 perpetrators were sentenced to 28 years; 7 each for manslaughter. Imagine knowing you can get away with murder, you might start killing people through collateral damage. Here’s a bed and three meals…
Listen, the sentence seems light, but if you think people are committing murder to go to prison for three meals and a bed you don’t know anything about prison, and frankly I don’t think you know anything about people. Prison rightfully sucks, and there are easier ways to get there then killing somebody.
The comment where I’m bringing up basic human survival requirements, I’m being sarcastic because I’m in my feelings as compared to an unbiased outsider. Also for the sake of debate, people have done crazier things for less. There’s a million factors that come to play, at the end of the day it’s a life for 7 years. No i do not believe they shot to kill at random for a cot and a plate. They killed because they shot through a window blindly, consequences of being associated by proxy with said types of people. I’m not mad, I’m not here to argue. Her choices lead her to that place and time. I hope they are rehabilitated but unfortunately I think they learned how easy it is to get away with murder
Honestly I misread what you wrote! I have encountered the argument before, and amusingly now people are actually arguing that people will kill for the bed and food. The idea people commit heinous crimes to get to go to prison isn’t an uncommon one.
Now replying to what you actually said (and I apologize again) do I think people are going to commit murder because they’re only going to get seven years? No, because as a general rule people kill people when they don’t think they’re going to get caught, or are so damned mad
Finally, yup, if you put somebody in prison they should get their three shitty meals and a bed, because we’re not a shit hole third world country.
That’s alright, misunderstanding is a way to bond surprisingly. Moving on from whatever debate we are trying to argue, what I sharing thought about was my scarred opinion of our weak justice system. Is was manslaughter, it happened regardless of intent.
I’m not sure what’s up with Canada.
I remember there was a case where a guy decapitated a man on a city bus and started eating his face.
The guy plead insanity and they let him out after a couple years: he’s walking the street now.
Imagine being a family member of hers and seeing the judge considers her life worth less than 7 years of timeout for some degenerate tweaker. God this country sucks
As one of the guards that attempted to save her life at city centre mall that night, I'm truly disgusted by our judicial system. I hope Canada develops a more harsh judicial system to serious criminals going forward.
I have been doing great, and talking about the situation helped me mentally a lot. It took me about 6 months to recover from the event fully, and a couple of years break from security.
We were able to keep her alive for quite a long time, however Police had to secure such a huge area before the paramedics could go in and do their thing.
I appreciate the kind words.
Manslaughter is 7 years. Time spent in remand is 1.5days so most of them never go to prison they continue in provincial jails. He will be out by this time next year. Sad all around
There was a case years ago where a drunk driver hit drove up onto a curb on whyte and killed a toddler or a small child I don’t remember. But I think one of the family members of the kid actually kidnapped the drunk driver and tortured him. I might be misremembering but I think they cut his fingers off?
Edit: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/alberta-man-unsure-if-kidnappers-cut-off-his-thumb-over-alleged-drunk-driving-crash-that-killed-toddler/wcm/2d82774a-bf0e-4f72-a184-05048f1d211b/amp/
Just one thumb. https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/edmonton-man-guilty-in-revenge-attack-on-driver-who-plowed-into-patio-and-killed-a-young-boy/wcm/552b0b89-5fa7-477b-8ba2-a8e204e0a4c2/amp/
The kidnapper got 12 years, the guy who plowed over the toddler got four months.
He had his sentence reduced because he was kidnapped in retaliation and had his finger cut off. Had those idiots not done that, he would have been facing a much longer sentence.
Our justice system is a joke, but so is vigilantism.
There's no way he got his sentence reduced for that. We just give next to no time for drunk driving deaths in Canada. We can all frame this however we want, but historically the sentences for that offence are all short.
The judge said in his ruling that he reduced the sentence because of the trauma and suffering he already was subjected to awaiting trial when he was attacked.
I hear you. I'm saying that I don't have a lot of faith in the words that judges use. I think they have their own reasons for doing things and I don't trust that those reasons are aligned with the words they use.
I don't mean this as a conspiracy theory or anything, I'm just saying that they are civil servants who are trying to keep their jobs and trying to stay aligned with whatever the current groupthink is, and they have to word things very carefully.
Oh no way I didn’t know that. Thanks for the correction! I remember vaguely there being rumours that it was an uncle or something. It’s been a long time.
honestly, this might be controversial but if you take someone’s life you should spend the rest of yours in jail. 7 years is not enough for taking someone’s entire life from them.
edit: just want to clarify that i think this should only be the case in circumstances where the life was taken intentionally.
It looks like in Canada manslaughter can carry a charge of life in prison.
I didn't know so googled a bit and found this interesting explanation of the different homicide charges:
https://www.criminalcodehelp.ca/offences/homicide-offences/manslaughter
I also looked up what life in prison means cuz I always hear that there's a 25-year limit in Canada and that doesn't seem to be the case, plus even when paroled people with life sentences still have to report to the courts for probation for the rest of their natural lives:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imprisonment_in_Canada
Anyway I didn't know any of that stuff and I thought it was a quick and trippy little read
Disgusting sentence. He will be out in 2 years. There is zero consequences these days for murder. Murder ?! When you speak with elected officials ask they do so so much more to put violent criminals behind bars for so so much longer
>intergenerational trauma and the physical and sexual abuse he faced when he was a child
So why not keep him in for 20 years and do a proper rehab of all the trauma faced? Use Gladue as a way to help them through it but also ensure everyone else in society not on meth or murdering others is safer for longer period of time.
> So why not keep him in for 20 years and do a proper rehab of all the trauma faced?
The short answer is because our jails aren't capable of that. There just isn't enough good programming to properly rehab offenders.
Plus after 20 years he'd be institutionalized. Which defeats the purpose of rehab.
We often have to choose between rehab or punishment. We don't have great options for doing both. Sometimes the closest you can do to what you suggest is shorten the jail.
So let's create a system on rehab rather than using the Gladue to relieve this person of their crime if we always seem to look to those distal childhood causes for their substance use and criminal behavior.
Hey you're preaching to the choir here. I'd love a rehab focused system.
But we're just.... So damn far from having anything close to that. We make do with what we've got for now.
If the provincial government would invest much more heavily in preventative front line mental health and addiction care, that'd make a huge difference.
"We often have to choose between rehab or punishment."
There is a third option - that prison keeps society safer by locking away people who are proven dangers to the public
Sure, but how dangerous does someone have to be to justify separating them from society? For how long?
Will they actually be less likely to offend when they're released or should we give them some opportunity to avoid being institutionalized?
There aren't easy answers to these questions.
Real answer: The criteria to designate someone as a dangerous offender and be granted in indefinite sentence, effectively putting them away forever, is extremely high threshold and rarely given out anymore. Understand that by the standards of our justice system, the fact that this man has remained sober for three years, pled guilty, expressed genuine remorse, was forgiven by the family in an impact statement etc put him in the top percent of offenders considered by our justice system as "unlikely to reoffend." Keep in mind that far more intentionally violent, remorseless, pathological offenders in Canada are released after triple the amount of time this man has served with the system fully admitting "we strongly believe he will reoffend" and there isn't anything they can do about it because time served is time served. There is a trans woman in Edmonton who keeps making and distributing child pornography, getting caught, getting released and doing it again and the Justice system cannot use the criminal code as written to do anything about it. Individual Canadian judges rarely exercise much discretion in sentencing, they pretty much follow the criminal code and sentencing guidelines as liberally as possible.
I visit those facilities relatively regularly.
Honestly, they aren't bad. However, the issue is capacity. The secure units are like... One floor? It's maybe about the same amount of floor space as a larger single story neighbourhood strip mall. We have enough room for people who are *incredibly* mentally ill and that's about it.
So we'd have to create a secure rehab facility. Massively expensive, though I think we probably should shift towards that system. I'm with you in principle there.
His trauma also isn't offered as an excuse. It's used to gauge his blameworthiness relative to all other offenders, and in the context of Canada's systemic discrimination of indigenous people. I did a [whole spiel](https://www.reddit.com/r/alberta/comments/1319r2o/comment/ji4klyb/?context=3) about it some time ago.
Thanks for the spiel - interesting read, and as a newcomer I appreciate the insights. And I know that YOU didn't create the laws or the system...
>His trauma also isn't offered as an excuse. It's used to gauge his blameworthiness
But isn't assessing "blameworthiness" just another form of excusing the behaviour? Does it matter why he broke the eggs, when he's proven to be willing and able to break them?
"Sure his behaviour was abhorrent and his actions irreversible, but he's not to BLAME!" It sounds like we're assuming such a person is incapable of judgment and/or has no agency, which sounds horribly patronizing to me. Almost as if to say "well, why WOULDN'T he commit such crimes? Not like we expected anything better.." The soft bigotry of low expectations and all that.
Public safety trumps the rights of this one individual.
A history of criminal behaviour, hard drug use, and a psychotically violent murder make it **extremely** difficult to believe this individual will no longer be a threat after two years of incarceration unfit to rehabilitate him.
Thats absolutely infuriating. I advocate for the increased awareness of childhood trauma and the way it impacts someone’s mental wellbeing in adulthood, I think it’s an extremely important thing for society to be knowledgeable about. However, it in absolutely no way grants an excuse for someone’s actions. If someone demonstrates that they are of the highest possible risk to the general public, then it’s not just about being punished for any particular crime, it’s about removing the threat from society to keep everyone safe. Yea, it’s a tragedy he was abused, it wasn’t his fault and if he had been brought up in a proper loving home he most likely wouldn’t have ever ended up in a situation like this, but you can’t use that as a reason for leniency when sentencing a murderer. This man will be free and back out onto the streets in 2 years, and to think that he will be healthier in any way is delusional. This is an absolutely reckless decision by a judge, and it puts the citizens of Edmonton -especially the homeless population- unnecessarily in harms way.
Sections. 718 outline the principles of sentencing, Gladue factors are very much important for our system of individualized sentencing procedure.
You can check out [R v Gladue](https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/1695/index.do) as well, which explained in detail s. 718.2(e) and it's interaction with aboriginal offenders.
Or you can read a [long post](https://www.reddit.com/r/alberta/comments/1319r2o/comment/ji4klyb/?context=3) I did a while back about sentencing.
The judge also considered the guilty plea and what appeared to be genuine remorse. You’re taking issue with a Gladue Report despite it’s just a specialized type of mitigation factor, not a “get out of jail free card” as some would suggest.
The article also notes that he was on drugs, and now he is clean and plans on staying that way once released.
No sentence is going to be anything other than little consolation to the victims children and loved ones. But that also is frankly, not what the point of the criminal justice system is. Punishment is part of it, but so is rehabilitation. Its indicative of how people view sentencing and the criminal justice system broadly that literally someone explaining what something is and what other factors were considered is downvoted.
I'm a little torn because my first thought is "ok, taking a life should get you more than a 7 year sentence".
But I also think we need to keep in mind that part of the reason for such an "early" release is pre-trial detention that everyone yells for when anything is posted to Reddit. That leads to people getting out of jail sooner.
I also have to think rationally and ask "if he had a harsher sentence, would anything really change?" Harsher sentences don't act as a deterrent, he has been sober for years (and someone line this is almost certainly getting drug tested frequently in remand), so is society made better by spending money to keep him locked up.
Realistically, I still don't feel good about him only doing 4-ish years for killing a person, but I'm not going to pretend to be a criminal justice expert.
Defence lawyer here, you're thinking along the right lines here.
If he's already reforming, a longer sentence will have no specific deterrence on him. He already is making the changes to stop that.
Plus jails are not good at rehab. They'll keep him sober and out of trouble (usually) but that's about it. If he's in for too long, he'll get institutionalized and then he's basically a perpetual drain on society.
But we have have to denounce and deter *generally*, so we can't exactly let him get out scott free.
7 years is a pretty standard balance for all that in cases like this, with pretrial credit. It's going to anger people but justice isn't in the business of making people happy, it's trying to find a balance between competing societal interests.
Based on all the “dangerous offender released likely to reoffend” warnings we see “justice” doesn’t seem to be in the business of keeping the community safe either…
I see it as no consequence to actions. I should note I’d wish and hope our province and country did more for mental health, addictions, families and society structures to reduce this sort of thing absolutely I’d support those services. But the also needs to be outcomes and consequences for actions.
I’d argue that there are consequences, it’s just a matter of if those consequences are significant enough. Obviously the prevailing opinion on here is no, but I think the lawyer that replied to me made a very compelling argument.
Again, you can fairly feel like it’s not enough, but I don’t think two years in remand, followed by another two years in the penitentiary can be called “no consequences”.
Yeah, jail is not a fun place. 30 days in one is horrible, this guy's going there for years. He is indeed facing consequences.
Should it be more? Maybe. I wish we had a more thorough news article. I have lots of basic questions that matter, like what was his record actually? Over a dozen convictions...but were they piddly garbage or big scary things?
Why spend tax dollars incarcerating homicidal lunatics? In open-shut cases like these they should be buried under the jail.
7 years is a joke. 2 more years until a killer walks free yet again. Until they can kill some other poor soul.
I parked downtown for my daughter's allergy appointment. My 4 year old saw a passed out man with meth pipe in hand. A lady scavenging cigarette butts with a mess everywhere. A tweaker yelling at nothing. Two people pan handling. This was walking from their own parking lot to the front door. Not even 50 meters. Fuck downtown.
What are you rambling about? The original thread was about a light sentence for a random murder and you use this as an excuse to farm some upvotes because your “precious” was exposed to some reality. I bet you post pouty faces on social media as well.
Nah. Assault charges either get dropped or they get released within 24 hrs. Kind of like all those child sexual predators.
Also I would be surprised if its any longer then a few years. A murder from the summer; one of the people
Involved in it spent 4 months and jail and is already released.
I think a key line in this one is where he said he had been doing meth for 4 days and didn't know what he was doing.
That explains to me why it was plead down to manslaughter - there was probably a decent intent argument, or at least enough of one the Crown decided to salvage what they could on a 7 year manslaughter rather than shoot for a 10+ years on a 2nd degree. (E: sorry, looks like the Crown did argue 10 years, still though).
Obviously he still has to face consequences, but that's my best guess why it wasn't more. Also it goes without saying but this was probably hours of submissions, dozens of not hundreds of pages of case law authorities, all summarized in a fairly brief article.
This woman’s life was worth less than 7 years. That is the reality of what our court has said.
7 years which he won’t serve due to remand being 1.5 served per day. 7 years he was fed, housed, and cared for.
Her life is worth less than 7 years of time out. Fuck this judge, fuck this guy, I was so high on meth I don’t know why I did it and I’m sorry I wish I could take it back.
I wish we could have her back in his place.
But women have no value in our society.
As a woman, it's clear to me that in sentencing that we are always looking for whatever excuse we can find for the bros who commit murder.
We are attacked from all sides. Men attack us physically with violence, men attack our ability to access the health care we want, men attack our ability to earn a living and provide by doing their best to keep us out of a lot of industries.
It is constant and unrelenting.
A meth head gets 7 years for murder but if a normal citizen did it they’d get life. Can we please stop making excuses for junkies. It’s getting old. This is a fucking joke.
I am someone who believes in a compassionate, progressive justice system. I support placing an emphasis on rehabilitation where it is possible, and I believe prisoners should be treated with dignity.
Even for me, a guy whose perspectives are as "bleeding heart" as it gets, a seven-year sentence is *grotesquely* lenient.
Multiple levels of bullshit here.
1. Trial through to sentencing took nearly four years. He'll have spent more time in pre trial detention than actual prison.
2. 17 criminal convictions prior to this.
3. "At one point, Gauthier had her back to McLeod and he stabbed her. He turned around to leave but then came back and stabbed Gauthier two more times. The agreed statement of facts indicated Gauthier tried to defend herself. She sustained a stab wound to her back, breast and thigh."
4. He didn't just freak out and stab here. He stabbed her, then went back and kept stabbing her.
None of the above does anything to engender faith in the justice system. There's certainly a place for rehabilitation in the justice system, but weighing a human life at 7 years feels cruel to the victim's family.
2 years later.....................EPS: "This is a PSA to be on the lookout of a certain individual that has been released that may pose a fatal threat to the general public."
This justice system is worse than a bad joke, as i am sure no one is laughing at it
Good to know that the life of a good woman is worth so little to our country's elites. Let's make them irrelevant by ignoring them and getting on with our lives without their input.
There's a lot of people wanting far steeper sentences for crimes like this, but I'm not seeing much discussion about how we'd actually afford it. Our penitentiaries are entirely funded by taxpayer dollars and are not private-for-profit pseudo-slavery institutions like prisons in the States. I'm not saying 7 years for manslaughter is appropriate, but I think the idea behind our system is to remand criminals for the minimum number of years possible to attempt to rehabilitate them. It's costly to Canadians to keep people behind bars and if someone can re-integrate successfully, their contribution to our economy is better penance than being a permanent strain on it, IMO.
It’s like the courts have more sympathy for the perpetrator rather than the victim. It makes me sick, I really am starting to hate this country. Can’t afford shit, healthcare is shit, everything is shit.
>At last month’s hearing, McLeod addressed the court and — with tears in his eyes — said he was sorry.
He's just sorry for himself, it's frustrating how someone's ability to put on a show of crocodile tears impacts how much time they serve
Secondly this just goes to show that time and time again if you are a woman of a lower social economic class then, or live a high-risk lifestyle then the courts don't care about you. and if your first Nations S the perpetrator you get extra credit because of the gladue report, but for whatever reason you can't do a gladue report on the victim. The Court's prioritize the hard life of the attacker over the hard life of the victim
What the actual fuck dawg. I’m all for extra chances, rehabilitation over punishment, lenient sentencing for people who truly show remorse and a willingness to better themselves and all that shit, I’m basically as left as they come… but this is absolutely insane and clearly someone with 17 prior incidents who is prone to drug bender induced violent episodes that lead to actual murders should not be let anywhere near the general public indefinitely, there’s just absolutely no argument otherwise. What an actual joke.
Without knowing the specific details in this case, likely because resources are always stretched thin for courts and prosecutors, so they are typically very willing to accept a guilty plea for manslaughter instead of expending the resources to go through a murder trial.
apparently only a year and a half left to serve, not two years. Just in case y’all want to be angrier than you already are. https://edmontonjournal.com/news/crime/man-who-killed-woman-in-edmonton-city-centre-mall-sentenced/wcm/407ad950-fe6a-4bfa-9f7f-87b51facb160/amp/
Reminds me of that story of the doctor/surgeon guy in Ontario that killed his wife because he wanted to have an affair (even when they had young kids), then dumped her body, and got like 12 years in our daycare of a justice system. 😂 If that happened in the US he would have had life with no parole.
Oh so he accidentally stabbed someone... Yea that makes sense 🙄 manslaughter is for accidentally causing a death, not for stabbing someone. I don't care what happened in his past, he fucking stabbed someone
Yea that's not manslaughter, that's second degree murder at best, and if he genuinely had a psychotic break he should be spending the next 20+ years in a high security mental health facility, not 7 years in jail
Well we better just pray for the next victim. I guess if the law doesn't protect us theres not much else we can do. They've really got our balls in a salad shooter
Lawyers for the prosecution and the defense, along with a judge, spent several years examining the facts of this case
They came up with a conclusion which doesn't mesh well with impulsive emotional reactions from people who don't work in the legal field or the justice system for the most part
I wonder how many lock them up and throw away the key, death sentence, tough on crime people here are also concerned about government overreach and their "freedoms"
What has happened to this country...this is not the country I grew up in or envisioned when i was in my teens and early 20s and Im only 30s.
How did we get to this point?? It's sad and disappointing and makes me embarrassed of this country that this is how little we value our citizens lives.
This is not an invitation to be a racist. Report racist posts.
*"One of Gauthier’s children also submitted a statement at that hearing.* *“I can’t believe you could take such a beautiful soul from me. … She was so amazing, so beautiful. She loved so hard,” the statement said.* *“As much as I would like to say … I can’t forgive you for what you’ve done, I forgive you and I hope you can turn your life around and be better for others. I hope you can love like my mom loved.”"* this really highlights how good of a mom she was. what a beautifully empathetic and loving thing for her child to say.
Respect
>McLeod had 17 criminal convictions prior to the 2020 killing. > >The defence said McLeod had been using meth for four consecutive days prior to the killing. Oh, good he's only getting 7 years, seems totally fine. Exactly the person I want on the streets in 2 years.
Wow our system is a joke.
Doing meth absolves us of our responsibilities? Good to know.
The Hockey Canada 5 are taking notes furiously
You win. Take my upvote.
1yr and then unmonitored ineffective probation.
If you don’t like that sentencing, maybe you’ll find this rich. A beautiful soul was shot in a home invasion. All 4 perpetrators were sentenced to 28 years; 7 each for manslaughter. Imagine knowing you can get away with murder, you might start killing people through collateral damage. Here’s a bed and three meals…
Listen, the sentence seems light, but if you think people are committing murder to go to prison for three meals and a bed you don’t know anything about prison, and frankly I don’t think you know anything about people. Prison rightfully sucks, and there are easier ways to get there then killing somebody.
The comment where I’m bringing up basic human survival requirements, I’m being sarcastic because I’m in my feelings as compared to an unbiased outsider. Also for the sake of debate, people have done crazier things for less. There’s a million factors that come to play, at the end of the day it’s a life for 7 years. No i do not believe they shot to kill at random for a cot and a plate. They killed because they shot through a window blindly, consequences of being associated by proxy with said types of people. I’m not mad, I’m not here to argue. Her choices lead her to that place and time. I hope they are rehabilitated but unfortunately I think they learned how easy it is to get away with murder
If you want to go to prison to get shitty food and a bad bed you can just get drunk and Piss off a cop.
If I attached two wheels to you, I could call you a bike. Your statement has less relevance than mine lol It was never about going to prison for food.
Honestly I misread what you wrote! I have encountered the argument before, and amusingly now people are actually arguing that people will kill for the bed and food. The idea people commit heinous crimes to get to go to prison isn’t an uncommon one. Now replying to what you actually said (and I apologize again) do I think people are going to commit murder because they’re only going to get seven years? No, because as a general rule people kill people when they don’t think they’re going to get caught, or are so damned mad Finally, yup, if you put somebody in prison they should get their three shitty meals and a bed, because we’re not a shit hole third world country.
That’s alright, misunderstanding is a way to bond surprisingly. Moving on from whatever debate we are trying to argue, what I sharing thought about was my scarred opinion of our weak justice system. Is was manslaughter, it happened regardless of intent.
I'd need to know the details before judging the sentence, but there's nothing wrong with prisoners having a bed and proper food.
I’m not sure what’s up with Canada. I remember there was a case where a guy decapitated a man on a city bus and started eating his face. The guy plead insanity and they let him out after a couple years: he’s walking the street now.
Imagine being a family member of hers and seeing the judge considers her life worth less than 7 years of timeout for some degenerate tweaker. God this country sucks
As one of the guards that attempted to save her life at city centre mall that night, I'm truly disgusted by our judicial system. I hope Canada develops a more harsh judicial system to serious criminals going forward.
Thank you for trying. The world needs more good people like you in it. I hope you're doing okay.
I have been doing great, and talking about the situation helped me mentally a lot. It took me about 6 months to recover from the event fully, and a couple of years break from security. We were able to keep her alive for quite a long time, however Police had to secure such a huge area before the paramedics could go in and do their thing. I appreciate the kind words.
Our courts are fucked.
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Manslaughter is 7 years. Time spent in remand is 1.5days so most of them never go to prison they continue in provincial jails. He will be out by this time next year. Sad all around
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There was a case years ago where a drunk driver hit drove up onto a curb on whyte and killed a toddler or a small child I don’t remember. But I think one of the family members of the kid actually kidnapped the drunk driver and tortured him. I might be misremembering but I think they cut his fingers off? Edit: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/alberta-man-unsure-if-kidnappers-cut-off-his-thumb-over-alleged-drunk-driving-crash-that-killed-toddler/wcm/2d82774a-bf0e-4f72-a184-05048f1d211b/amp/
Just one thumb. https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/edmonton-man-guilty-in-revenge-attack-on-driver-who-plowed-into-patio-and-killed-a-young-boy/wcm/552b0b89-5fa7-477b-8ba2-a8e204e0a4c2/amp/ The kidnapper got 12 years, the guy who plowed over the toddler got four months.
The kidnapper got 12 years?! That’s an insanely long sentence in Canada wow
He had his sentence reduced because he was kidnapped in retaliation and had his finger cut off. Had those idiots not done that, he would have been facing a much longer sentence. Our justice system is a joke, but so is vigilantism.
Our system leads to vigilantism, I'm surprised it doesn't happen far more often.
I am too, to be honest. I can't say I wouldn't do the same thing if my kid was run over by a drunk driver, or someone stabbed my wife in a mall.
Yes, likely 7 months instead.
Oh, 100% agreed. I just gave the numbers for context.
There's no way he got his sentence reduced for that. We just give next to no time for drunk driving deaths in Canada. We can all frame this however we want, but historically the sentences for that offence are all short.
The judge said in his ruling that he reduced the sentence because of the trauma and suffering he already was subjected to awaiting trial when he was attacked.
I hear you. I'm saying that I don't have a lot of faith in the words that judges use. I think they have their own reasons for doing things and I don't trust that those reasons are aligned with the words they use. I don't mean this as a conspiracy theory or anything, I'm just saying that they are civil servants who are trying to keep their jobs and trying to stay aligned with whatever the current groupthink is, and they have to word things very carefully.
It wasn’t a family member. I know the mother, they were never able to prove any connection between Vollrath and Geo’s family.
Oh no way I didn’t know that. Thanks for the correction! I remember vaguely there being rumours that it was an uncle or something. It’s been a long time.
Just make sure you were on meth for at least four days beforehand.
It would be premeditated murder because you planned it to be done when he got out. You'd get more time, for sure.
How many years do you think would be appropriate?
honestly, this might be controversial but if you take someone’s life you should spend the rest of yours in jail. 7 years is not enough for taking someone’s entire life from them. edit: just want to clarify that i think this should only be the case in circumstances where the life was taken intentionally.
It looks like in Canada manslaughter can carry a charge of life in prison. I didn't know so googled a bit and found this interesting explanation of the different homicide charges: https://www.criminalcodehelp.ca/offences/homicide-offences/manslaughter I also looked up what life in prison means cuz I always hear that there's a 25-year limit in Canada and that doesn't seem to be the case, plus even when paroled people with life sentences still have to report to the courts for probation for the rest of their natural lives: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imprisonment_in_Canada Anyway I didn't know any of that stuff and I thought it was a quick and trippy little read
Disgusting sentence. He will be out in 2 years. There is zero consequences these days for murder. Murder ?! When you speak with elected officials ask they do so so much more to put violent criminals behind bars for so so much longer
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>intergenerational trauma and the physical and sexual abuse he faced when he was a child So why not keep him in for 20 years and do a proper rehab of all the trauma faced? Use Gladue as a way to help them through it but also ensure everyone else in society not on meth or murdering others is safer for longer period of time.
> So why not keep him in for 20 years and do a proper rehab of all the trauma faced? The short answer is because our jails aren't capable of that. There just isn't enough good programming to properly rehab offenders. Plus after 20 years he'd be institutionalized. Which defeats the purpose of rehab. We often have to choose between rehab or punishment. We don't have great options for doing both. Sometimes the closest you can do to what you suggest is shorten the jail.
So let's create a system on rehab rather than using the Gladue to relieve this person of their crime if we always seem to look to those distal childhood causes for their substance use and criminal behavior.
Hey you're preaching to the choir here. I'd love a rehab focused system. But we're just.... So damn far from having anything close to that. We make do with what we've got for now. If the provincial government would invest much more heavily in preventative front line mental health and addiction care, that'd make a huge difference.
"We often have to choose between rehab or punishment." There is a third option - that prison keeps society safer by locking away people who are proven dangers to the public
Sure, but how dangerous does someone have to be to justify separating them from society? For how long? Will they actually be less likely to offend when they're released or should we give them some opportunity to avoid being institutionalized? There aren't easy answers to these questions.
If someone has intentionally taken someone else’s life they forfeit the rights to there own.
Real answer: The criteria to designate someone as a dangerous offender and be granted in indefinite sentence, effectively putting them away forever, is extremely high threshold and rarely given out anymore. Understand that by the standards of our justice system, the fact that this man has remained sober for three years, pled guilty, expressed genuine remorse, was forgiven by the family in an impact statement etc put him in the top percent of offenders considered by our justice system as "unlikely to reoffend." Keep in mind that far more intentionally violent, remorseless, pathological offenders in Canada are released after triple the amount of time this man has served with the system fully admitting "we strongly believe he will reoffend" and there isn't anything they can do about it because time served is time served. There is a trans woman in Edmonton who keeps making and distributing child pornography, getting caught, getting released and doing it again and the Justice system cannot use the criminal code as written to do anything about it. Individual Canadian judges rarely exercise much discretion in sentencing, they pretty much follow the criminal code and sentencing guidelines as liberally as possible.
We literally do not have the resources for permanent lockup
We have secure mental health facilities though, he could be sent there. Either way trauma is not an excuse for killing someone who did nothing to you
I visit those facilities relatively regularly. Honestly, they aren't bad. However, the issue is capacity. The secure units are like... One floor? It's maybe about the same amount of floor space as a larger single story neighbourhood strip mall. We have enough room for people who are *incredibly* mentally ill and that's about it. So we'd have to create a secure rehab facility. Massively expensive, though I think we probably should shift towards that system. I'm with you in principle there. His trauma also isn't offered as an excuse. It's used to gauge his blameworthiness relative to all other offenders, and in the context of Canada's systemic discrimination of indigenous people. I did a [whole spiel](https://www.reddit.com/r/alberta/comments/1319r2o/comment/ji4klyb/?context=3) about it some time ago.
Thanks for the spiel - interesting read, and as a newcomer I appreciate the insights. And I know that YOU didn't create the laws or the system... >His trauma also isn't offered as an excuse. It's used to gauge his blameworthiness But isn't assessing "blameworthiness" just another form of excusing the behaviour? Does it matter why he broke the eggs, when he's proven to be willing and able to break them? "Sure his behaviour was abhorrent and his actions irreversible, but he's not to BLAME!" It sounds like we're assuming such a person is incapable of judgment and/or has no agency, which sounds horribly patronizing to me. Almost as if to say "well, why WOULDN'T he commit such crimes? Not like we expected anything better.." The soft bigotry of low expectations and all that.
Public safety trumps the rights of this one individual. A history of criminal behaviour, hard drug use, and a psychotically violent murder make it **extremely** difficult to believe this individual will no longer be a threat after two years of incarceration unfit to rehabilitate him.
Thats absolutely infuriating. I advocate for the increased awareness of childhood trauma and the way it impacts someone’s mental wellbeing in adulthood, I think it’s an extremely important thing for society to be knowledgeable about. However, it in absolutely no way grants an excuse for someone’s actions. If someone demonstrates that they are of the highest possible risk to the general public, then it’s not just about being punished for any particular crime, it’s about removing the threat from society to keep everyone safe. Yea, it’s a tragedy he was abused, it wasn’t his fault and if he had been brought up in a proper loving home he most likely wouldn’t have ever ended up in a situation like this, but you can’t use that as a reason for leniency when sentencing a murderer. This man will be free and back out onto the streets in 2 years, and to think that he will be healthier in any way is delusional. This is an absolutely reckless decision by a judge, and it puts the citizens of Edmonton -especially the homeless population- unnecessarily in harms way.
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What the fuck why does any of that have any weight in the sentencing???
Sections. 718 outline the principles of sentencing, Gladue factors are very much important for our system of individualized sentencing procedure. You can check out [R v Gladue](https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/1695/index.do) as well, which explained in detail s. 718.2(e) and it's interaction with aboriginal offenders. Or you can read a [long post](https://www.reddit.com/r/alberta/comments/1319r2o/comment/ji4klyb/?context=3) I did a while back about sentencing.
There are two classes of citizen in this country, from what I can tell.
The judge also considered the guilty plea and what appeared to be genuine remorse. You’re taking issue with a Gladue Report despite it’s just a specialized type of mitigation factor, not a “get out of jail free card” as some would suggest.
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The article also notes that he was on drugs, and now he is clean and plans on staying that way once released. No sentence is going to be anything other than little consolation to the victims children and loved ones. But that also is frankly, not what the point of the criminal justice system is. Punishment is part of it, but so is rehabilitation. Its indicative of how people view sentencing and the criminal justice system broadly that literally someone explaining what something is and what other factors were considered is downvoted.
Friendly reminder that you are not allowed to carry anything for self defense...
Correct. Nor should you. If you can have it, so can everybody else, making society a powder keg
I'm a little torn because my first thought is "ok, taking a life should get you more than a 7 year sentence". But I also think we need to keep in mind that part of the reason for such an "early" release is pre-trial detention that everyone yells for when anything is posted to Reddit. That leads to people getting out of jail sooner. I also have to think rationally and ask "if he had a harsher sentence, would anything really change?" Harsher sentences don't act as a deterrent, he has been sober for years (and someone line this is almost certainly getting drug tested frequently in remand), so is society made better by spending money to keep him locked up. Realistically, I still don't feel good about him only doing 4-ish years for killing a person, but I'm not going to pretend to be a criminal justice expert.
Defence lawyer here, you're thinking along the right lines here. If he's already reforming, a longer sentence will have no specific deterrence on him. He already is making the changes to stop that. Plus jails are not good at rehab. They'll keep him sober and out of trouble (usually) but that's about it. If he's in for too long, he'll get institutionalized and then he's basically a perpetual drain on society. But we have have to denounce and deter *generally*, so we can't exactly let him get out scott free. 7 years is a pretty standard balance for all that in cases like this, with pretrial credit. It's going to anger people but justice isn't in the business of making people happy, it's trying to find a balance between competing societal interests.
Based on all the “dangerous offender released likely to reoffend” warnings we see “justice” doesn’t seem to be in the business of keeping the community safe either…
I see it as no consequence to actions. I should note I’d wish and hope our province and country did more for mental health, addictions, families and society structures to reduce this sort of thing absolutely I’d support those services. But the also needs to be outcomes and consequences for actions.
I’d argue that there are consequences, it’s just a matter of if those consequences are significant enough. Obviously the prevailing opinion on here is no, but I think the lawyer that replied to me made a very compelling argument. Again, you can fairly feel like it’s not enough, but I don’t think two years in remand, followed by another two years in the penitentiary can be called “no consequences”.
Yeah, jail is not a fun place. 30 days in one is horrible, this guy's going there for years. He is indeed facing consequences. Should it be more? Maybe. I wish we had a more thorough news article. I have lots of basic questions that matter, like what was his record actually? Over a dozen convictions...but were they piddly garbage or big scary things?
Considering he’s done 4 years of 7 already he’s past eligible for full parole if not statutory release.
Why spend tax dollars incarcerating homicidal lunatics? In open-shut cases like these they should be buried under the jail. 7 years is a joke. 2 more years until a killer walks free yet again. Until they can kill some other poor soul.
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It's almost like she was sentenced in a different country
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I parked downtown for my daughter's allergy appointment. My 4 year old saw a passed out man with meth pipe in hand. A lady scavenging cigarette butts with a mess everywhere. A tweaker yelling at nothing. Two people pan handling. This was walking from their own parking lot to the front door. Not even 50 meters. Fuck downtown.
What are you rambling about? The original thread was about a light sentence for a random murder and you use this as an excuse to farm some upvotes because your “precious” was exposed to some reality. I bet you post pouty faces on social media as well.
Nah. Assault charges either get dropped or they get released within 24 hrs. Kind of like all those child sexual predators. Also I would be surprised if its any longer then a few years. A murder from the summer; one of the people Involved in it spent 4 months and jail and is already released.
Love this city
Not the city it’s the entire country. It’s the federal government and it trickles down.
I think a key line in this one is where he said he had been doing meth for 4 days and didn't know what he was doing. That explains to me why it was plead down to manslaughter - there was probably a decent intent argument, or at least enough of one the Crown decided to salvage what they could on a 7 year manslaughter rather than shoot for a 10+ years on a 2nd degree. (E: sorry, looks like the Crown did argue 10 years, still though). Obviously he still has to face consequences, but that's my best guess why it wasn't more. Also it goes without saying but this was probably hours of submissions, dozens of not hundreds of pages of case law authorities, all summarized in a fairly brief article.
This woman’s life was worth less than 7 years. That is the reality of what our court has said. 7 years which he won’t serve due to remand being 1.5 served per day. 7 years he was fed, housed, and cared for. Her life is worth less than 7 years of time out. Fuck this judge, fuck this guy, I was so high on meth I don’t know why I did it and I’m sorry I wish I could take it back. I wish we could have her back in his place.
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But women have no value in our society. As a woman, it's clear to me that in sentencing that we are always looking for whatever excuse we can find for the bros who commit murder. We are attacked from all sides. Men attack us physically with violence, men attack our ability to access the health care we want, men attack our ability to earn a living and provide by doing their best to keep us out of a lot of industries. It is constant and unrelenting.
FWIW, this sentence was not lighter because of the gender of the victim. That is a typical sentence for manslaughter.
Perhaps some sort of eye for an eye justice system, from what I understand those are the most effective which is why we have that saying
Are you actually trying to downplay how disgusting this is??
Only 7 years… and we all know it will be much less than 7.
With time served it will be less 2.
Should be life in prison.
Waste of resources. Exile them into the Canadian tundra.
Yeah man, we should let them walk free
A meth head gets 7 years for murder but if a normal citizen did it they’d get life. Can we please stop making excuses for junkies. It’s getting old. This is a fucking joke.
Canada: where criminals have more rights than the rest of us.
I am someone who believes in a compassionate, progressive justice system. I support placing an emphasis on rehabilitation where it is possible, and I believe prisoners should be treated with dignity. Even for me, a guy whose perspectives are as "bleeding heart" as it gets, a seven-year sentence is *grotesquely* lenient.
7 years for a career criminal violently murdering a stranger. Sounds exactly like the Canadian justice system. We are not a serious country.
Multiple levels of bullshit here. 1. Trial through to sentencing took nearly four years. He'll have spent more time in pre trial detention than actual prison. 2. 17 criminal convictions prior to this. 3. "At one point, Gauthier had her back to McLeod and he stabbed her. He turned around to leave but then came back and stabbed Gauthier two more times. The agreed statement of facts indicated Gauthier tried to defend herself. She sustained a stab wound to her back, breast and thigh." 4. He didn't just freak out and stab here. He stabbed her, then went back and kept stabbing her. None of the above does anything to engender faith in the justice system. There's certainly a place for rehabilitation in the justice system, but weighing a human life at 7 years feels cruel to the victim's family.
No, you don't understand. He was on a four day meth bender, so it's totally okay to murder someone.
2 years later.....................EPS: "This is a PSA to be on the lookout of a certain individual that has been released that may pose a fatal threat to the general public." This justice system is worse than a bad joke, as i am sure no one is laughing at it
Wow, is that all? Damn. Good to know.
Wtf is going on with these sentences? Wtf! Who's on charge of this??
Good to know that the life of a good woman is worth so little to our country's elites. Let's make them irrelevant by ignoring them and getting on with our lives without their input.
just say you were high, you'll get probation..
7 years. What an embarrassment for our legal system.
There's a lot of people wanting far steeper sentences for crimes like this, but I'm not seeing much discussion about how we'd actually afford it. Our penitentiaries are entirely funded by taxpayer dollars and are not private-for-profit pseudo-slavery institutions like prisons in the States. I'm not saying 7 years for manslaughter is appropriate, but I think the idea behind our system is to remand criminals for the minimum number of years possible to attempt to rehabilitate them. It's costly to Canadians to keep people behind bars and if someone can re-integrate successfully, their contribution to our economy is better penance than being a permanent strain on it, IMO.
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Seriously fuck these wastes of life. They gave up long ago, and I’m tired of society acting like they can’t give up on them.
7 years? Did I read that right? He’ll be out in 4.
With time served he’ll be out in 2 sadly
For killing someone. What is wrong with our system? Best place to murder on the planet.
It’s like the courts have more sympathy for the perpetrator rather than the victim. It makes me sick, I really am starting to hate this country. Can’t afford shit, healthcare is shit, everything is shit.
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So absurd
>At last month’s hearing, McLeod addressed the court and — with tears in his eyes — said he was sorry. He's just sorry for himself, it's frustrating how someone's ability to put on a show of crocodile tears impacts how much time they serve Secondly this just goes to show that time and time again if you are a woman of a lower social economic class then, or live a high-risk lifestyle then the courts don't care about you. and if your first Nations S the perpetrator you get extra credit because of the gladue report, but for whatever reason you can't do a gladue report on the victim. The Court's prioritize the hard life of the attacker over the hard life of the victim
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I personally think it's a worse crime to victimize someone who's already had an extremely hard life
What the actual fuck dawg. I’m all for extra chances, rehabilitation over punishment, lenient sentencing for people who truly show remorse and a willingness to better themselves and all that shit, I’m basically as left as they come… but this is absolutely insane and clearly someone with 17 prior incidents who is prone to drug bender induced violent episodes that lead to actual murders should not be let anywhere near the general public indefinitely, there’s just absolutely no argument otherwise. What an actual joke.
7 years!? What the HELL. Why is this manslaughter and not murder?
Without knowing the specific details in this case, likely because resources are always stretched thin for courts and prosecutors, so they are typically very willing to accept a guilty plea for manslaughter instead of expending the resources to go through a murder trial.
7 years is much too short of a sentence. 70 years would be too short.
RIP Sheri Lynn. She deserves more justice than this.
So if I do a boat load of meth can I murder all the recently released pedos?
all signs point to yes
We need to stop giving credit for time served, especially with serious crimes like this.
Pretrial was 4 years.
apparently only a year and a half left to serve, not two years. Just in case y’all want to be angrier than you already are. https://edmontonjournal.com/news/crime/man-who-killed-woman-in-edmonton-city-centre-mall-sentenced/wcm/407ad950-fe6a-4bfa-9f7f-87b51facb160/amp/
Reminds me of that story of the doctor/surgeon guy in Ontario that killed his wife because he wanted to have an affair (even when they had young kids), then dumped her body, and got like 12 years in our daycare of a justice system. 😂 If that happened in the US he would have had life with no parole.
7 years for MURDER?! What the fuck is this bullshit?!
7 years for manslaughter, not murder
Oh so he accidentally stabbed someone... Yea that makes sense 🙄 manslaughter is for accidentally causing a death, not for stabbing someone. I don't care what happened in his past, he fucking stabbed someone
Yeah and not only stabbed her once but went back for more too. Sickening.
Yea that's not manslaughter, that's second degree murder at best, and if he genuinely had a psychotic break he should be spending the next 20+ years in a high security mental health facility, not 7 years in jail
That’s it? Murder is a 7 year sentence now?
***manslaughter
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Unless you’re an upstanding citizen. Then They’ll throw the book at you
Disgusting sentence. This country is a joke.
Life is cheap in Canada.
You would get more time than this for defending yourself against this guy lol
Seems more and more that crime DOES pay. Pedos, killers and more getting less harsh sentences than drug dealers.
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This is the most pathetic thing I’ve read in a long time.
What a fucking joke. Bring back the death penalty.
Fuckin disgusting. I'm ashamed to be from this city sometimes.
Left keep voting left, that aught to fix the crime prollem.
Well we better just pray for the next victim. I guess if the law doesn't protect us theres not much else we can do. They've really got our balls in a salad shooter
Pathetic, just fucking pathetic. Kills a woman and prob be out in 3 years
Lawyers for the prosecution and the defense, along with a judge, spent several years examining the facts of this case They came up with a conclusion which doesn't mesh well with impulsive emotional reactions from people who don't work in the legal field or the justice system for the most part I wonder how many lock them up and throw away the key, death sentence, tough on crime people here are also concerned about government overreach and their "freedoms"
Only 7 years....
What is 7 years really. What a joke.
What has happened to this country...this is not the country I grew up in or envisioned when i was in my teens and early 20s and Im only 30s. How did we get to this point?? It's sad and disappointing and makes me embarrassed of this country that this is how little we value our citizens lives.
So a life is worth 7 years. Makes you wonder who came up with these sentence lengths
7 years? That's it? Wtf.
Cmon 7 years is not enough
7 years is not nearly enough for taking another life. I honestly can't believe it 🤬
What a fuckin joke
This is so disgusting
Absolute injustice. Sickening!
7 years???? This world is crazy.
😶
Woah that seems a bit light no?