KILLER TO LEARN FATE MAY 8
La Loche shooter’s lawyer urges sentence in psychiatric facility
The years-long legal saga that has ensued since a high school student fatally shot four people in La Loche in January 2016 appears set to end on May 8.
Judge Janet McIvor set that date on Friday to finalize the sentencing of the shooter, who was 17 on the day he killed four people and injured several others in the northern Saskatchewan community.
“I think that we should be doing this as soon as we can,” McIvor said.
McIvor ruled last month in La Loche that the shooter will be sentenced as an adult. However, she said she needed an additional court date to complete the sentencing because she needed a report outlining the facilities where he can serve his time.
The date to complete sentencing was decided on Friday after discussions with the Crown and defence. The proceedings were also live-streamed in the La Loche courthouse. The shooter appeared via video link from Kilburn Hall youth detention centre in Saskatoon.
He is now 20 years old, but media have been barred from reporting his name because he was a youth when he committed his crimes. Now that he has been sentenced as an adult, the Youth Criminal Justice Act says the publication ban on his name should be lifted. However, McIvor said the ban on his name will remain until sentencing is complete.
Defence lawyer Aaron Fox asked McIvor to recommend the shooter serve his sentence at a psychiatric centre. McIvor doesn’t have the power to say where the shooter will go, but her recommendations are taken into consideration.
Until sentencing is complete, he will be held at the Prince Albert jail.
McIvor thanked media for attending court on Friday and acknowledged that reporters were lockedoutoftheLaLochecourthouse when she delivered part of her sentencing decision last month.
The judge said she hadn’t realized what happened until later.
“I was dismayed to hear that. For me, as a judge of the provincial court — and I think that I can speak for every judge, not only in this province, but in this country — we take very seriously the open court principle,” McIvor said.
“It can never be emphasized enough how important it is to have the media to have free and open access to any court in Canada.”
La Loche provincial court has only 32 seats for spectators, all of which were reserved for community members and family of victims that day. RCMP and the courthouse deputy sheriff told reporters they were not allowed inside the building, and the door was locked before McIvor began reading her sentencing decision.
It remains unclear who made the decision. RCMP said they were acting on the judge’s instructions, that no RCMP member locked the courthouse door and that the RCMP did not know who locked it. A spokesperson for Saskatchewan Courts said McIvor believed the deputy sheriffs and RCMP had made the decision.
The shooter pleaded guilty in October 2016 to two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of brothers Dayne and Drayden Fontaine, two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of teacher’s aide Marie Janvier and teacher Adam Wood, and seven counts of attempted murder.
In her sentencing decision last month, McIvor said the shooter’s planning, deliberation and resolve had “an adult-like quality.”
As a youth sentenced as an adult for first-degree murder, he will face a life sentence with no eligibility for parole for 10 years. It’s unclear how much credit he will receive for time already served.