N.W.T. judge says 6 month plea deal for repeat spousal abuser 'demonstrably unfit'
Judge says he has to accept sentence because it was proposed by both Crown and defence
A Yellowknife judge had some harsh criticism for the prosecutor for a plea deal that ended with a Tuktoyaktuk man being sentenced to a total of six months in jail for three separate attacks on women.
The criticism came in a written decision issued Wednesday in the sentencing of Daniel Eddy Lucas of Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., who has been convicted of at least seven previous domestic assaults.
The 50-year-old has been convicted of five other assaults but in his decision Territorial Court Judge Donovan Molloy noted the prosecutor was unable to say whether any of those were also committed against intimate partners.
Molloy said that information is important because crimes of violence are considered even more serious when the victim is an intimate partner.
Judge Molloy said the Crown failed to provide another important piece of information — whether either or both of the two women Lucas assaulted are Indigenous. The judge said a change to the Criminal Code last year requires sentencing judges to focus on denunciation and deterrence when victims are members of vulnerable groups, such as Indigenous women.
"It would strain credulity to infer that the Crown considered these sections in formulating its sentencing position when the Crown has no information regarding the status of the victims," wrote Molloy in his decision.
The judge described the plea deal as "demonstrably unfit" but said it was not inappropriate enough to meet the high standard established for judges to reject sentences jointly proposed by defence lawyers and the prosecutor.
"I am unable to conclude that it meets the threshold of being so unhinged as to cause reasonable and informed persons to believe that the proper functioning of the justice system has broken down," wrote Molloy in accepting the six month sentence.
Sudden attacks
In the plea deal reached with the Crown, Lucas pleaded guilty to two charges of assault causing bodily harm and one count of assault.
The assaults to two women happened over a span of three months earlier this year and are laid out in a statement of agreed facts Lucas admitted to.
On Jan. 4 he was drinking with one of the women and then suddenly became upset and grabbed her by the face and squeezed her face. On Feb. 29 he was drinking with another woman when he suddenly lost his temper, threw her to the ground and punched her in the head and eye. He attacked the first victim again on March 3. She had said she wanted to stop drinking and go to sleep when he punched her in the head and pulled a clump of her hair out.
Lucas has 66 criminal convictions on his record.
Prosecutor says information not available
"This is an instance where [the judge is] expressing some concern," said Andreas Kuntz, the prosecutor who handled the sentencing, of Judge Molloy's decision. "He's not saying justice was not done."
In an interview with CBC News, Kuntz said Lucas's criminal record goes so far back that the Crown's filing system does not have information about whether the victims of some of Lucas's previous attacks were intimate partners or not. Kuntz said that information has typically only been included in files in the last 10 or 15 years.
He said he felt uncomfortable asking the victims directly if they are Indigenous, though he acknowledged that it is relevant to sentencing.
"I have not figured out how to get that information in a way that's respectful of the victim and that respects their privacy," said Kuntz. He said there is no procedure in place requiring prosecutors to determine whether victims are Indigenous.
In his decision, Judge Molloy noted that in some domestic violence cases prosecutors will offer lenient plea deals when they sense victims may be reluctant to testify. But he said in this case, both were willing to do so.
Kuntz said there was a risk of not getting convictions if the case went to trial. He said the victims' memories of the incidents are clouded by the alcohol they had consumed at the time, making them less reliable witnesses.
Judge Molloy said that, looking at sentences for similar cases, a fit sentence for Lucas would be 14 months in jail, more than twice what the defence and prosecution proposed.
With credit for the time he's already served, Lucas has fewer than 80 days left on his sentence.