Killer seeks to avoid lengthy jail term at sentencing hearing
Michael James Robertson knows he has to go to prison for fatally stabbing a man during an argument over a cellphone chip; he alluded to it himself.
“I don’t think I deserve a chance right now,” Robertson said during cross-examination at his dangerous offender hearing in Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench on Friday.
But he’s hoping it won’t be an indefinite sentence: Robertson said he’s young and wants to learn, take programs and eventually be out in the world again.
After spending almost five years behind bars for a violent robbery, Robertson got a taste of freedom when out on statutory release in late 2014. He was living in a halfway house in Alberta, working and trying to straighten out when he ran away and breached his parole in February 2015, he explained when he took the stand on Thursday.
Robertson said he got spooked after phone calls from an RCMP officer and then his parole officer. Both wanted to meet with him, but they wouldn’t tell him why, he said. He feared he was going back into custody for some unknown reason and fled to see his family in Saskatchewan.
That led to reconnecting with negative people, drinking and selling drugs, Robertson said. On March 12, 2015, he ended up at a Saskatoon home where 42-yearold Rocky Genereaux lived. Robertson accused Genereaux of stealing his phone chip and stabbed him in the stomach.
He had only been out of prison for five months.
Robertson was arrested a month after the stabbing. He told court he had started using methamphetamine and ran from police.
“I just wanted to die,” he said. Robertson testified he could have avoided the altercation by staying at the halfway house and not carrying a knife. The fact he always carries a knife is a huge risk factor in committing violent offences, a forensic psychiatrist testified earlier.
Robertson went on trial last June, claiming the killing was in self-defence because Genereaux threatened him with an HIVinfected needle. The jury didn’t buy it, but convicted him of manslaughter instead of second-degree murder. The Crown is seeking to have Robertson designated a dangerous offender and sentenced to an indefinite prison term.
Hoping to explain his criminal past, Robertson said he was beaten by his foster father and had little family support before he was recruited into a gang at 15. Some of his family members were part of the gang, including his father; Robertson said he was forced to join.
Most of his crimes from then on were gang-related, he said. Robertson became a high-ranking member but testified he tried to leave in 2012 by requesting a transfer to a penitentiary without a gang unit. He was denied and remained in the gang until his statutory release.
At the hearing, Robertson testified he is no longer in a gang and his gang tattoos have been removed.
The case was adjourned until October for arguments.