Low-level crack dealer gets four and half years for fatal stabbing
Damien Dubien will serve four and a half years in prison for stabbing Adrian Johnson to death during a late-night argument at a Lowertown crack den.
Dubien, 34, was sentenced last month after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the homicide on Nov. 18, 2017.
Dubien was armed with a knife and Johnson, 45, was wielding a liquor bottle in each hand when the two got into a “heated argument” at an apartment on a cul-de-sac off Murray Street. Court heard Johnson at one point insulted Dubien, calling him a “goof.” Dubien brandished a hunting knife and stabbed Johnson in the chest.
He acknowledged in his guilty plea that his response to “the perceived threat of force posed by Mr. Johnson was disproportionate in the circumstances.”
He made no attempt to help the dying man after the stabbing, Crown prosecutor Matthew Humphreys noted in court, as Johnson staggered across the street and collapsed outside a downtown shelter.
The Crown had called for a sentence of six years, while defence lawyer Mark Ertel argued for a sentence of between three and four years, telling Justice Trevor Brown his client had expressed “significant remorse” and “a commitment to rehabilitation and sobriety.”
Dubien was described in court as a low-level crack dealer who was feeding his own habit. He has a prior criminal record with “significant” involvement in the drug subculture, Humphreys said, and was on probation at the time of the killing.
In a sentencing hearing earlier in June, Dubien faced Johnson’s mother in court and apologized for taking the other man’s life. He then apologized to his own family members, seated in court, and pledged to change his “dysfunctional drug addict lifestyle.”
Nessa Glasgow, Johnson’s mother, told court in a victim impact statement that she could only begin to forgive her son’s killer once he had completed his sentence.
She still has regular nightmares about her son’s lonesome death.
“It is forever etched in my memory,” Glasgow said. “I did not get the chance to say goodbye to my son, to hold his hand and tell him I love him. Instead he died alone on the pavement.”
Dubien’s defence asked the judge to consider a request from Dubien’s family to have him serve his sentence in Alberta’s Drumheller Institution so he could be closer to family support and have access to drug and psychiatric treatment.
As part of his sentence, Dubien was ordered to submit a DNA sample to a national databank and was given a lifetime weapons ban.
He was credited for nearly a year of time already served in pretrial custody.