Durant’s sentencing delayed to new year
Defence may try for shorter sentence for killer because he was held in segregation
Michael Durant and his victim’s family members will have to wait a little longer to learn his sentence.
Lead Crown attorney Michael Sabaddini and the defence attorney, Joe Wilkinson, asked Superior Court Justice Gerald Taylor to adjourn Durant’s sentencing hearing until Jan. 4 to allow more time to research sentencing recommendations.
On Nov. 10, Durant, 47, was convicted of second-degree murder in a 32-year-old Niagara Falls woman’s death.
“Mr. Wilkinson and I request an adjournment to acquire institutional records for Mr. Durant,” Sabaddini said. “They may help your honour in determining the sentence. We thought Jan. 4 would be enough time for institutions to gather records.”
The victim’s body was found in August 2003 in a ditch on the outskirts of Niagara Falls. Her name is covered by a publication ban issued to spare the victim’s family additional trauma.
An autopsy revealed she died from blunt force injuries that a pathologist said could have been inflicted with a hammer.
Durant’s second trial on the same charges started last January but was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which initially closed most of the province’s courts. The trial resumed in September.
“I don’t think we will be able to proceed with sentencing on Jan. 4, but we will be able to give your honour an update,” Wilkinson said.
“Mr. Durant has been incarcerated for a number of years, and this is not a small number of records we are seeking.”
A second-degree murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence. It differs from a firstdegree murder conviction by when the person will be eligible to apply for parole.
First-degree murder precludes someone from applying for parole for 25 years. Seconddegree murder has a minimum 10-year wait for parole eligibility with a maximum 25-year wait.
Wilkinson also alerted Taylor to recent cases where judges have reduced the wait because of excessive use segregation in Canadian prisons.
“All that is to say, in a very general way, that Mr. Durant has experienced a significant amount of time in segregation, and I feel obliged to explore this on behalf of Mr. Durant,” Wilkinson said.
Wilkinson said Durant was moved to the Maplehurst Correctional Complex in Milton after his 2012 conviction for the same offence was overturned on appeal.
“All Mr. Durant’s records may have been all been sent to Maplehurst — so we could get lucky,” Wilkinson said. “If that’s not the case, with the number of institutions involved, it may take some time to receive all the records..”
Wilkinson was referring to the second-degree murder conviction of Sinbad Marshall earlier this year. The judge sentenced Marshall in the death of an 82year- old Toronto grandmother, who interrupted him during a break-in.
In the sentencing phase, Superior Court Justice Robert F. Goldstein, cited Section 12 of the Charter, which states “everyone has the right not to be subject to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.”
“Segregation may or may not have been a punishment; undoubtedly it was a treatment,” Goldstein wrote.
Goldstein set Marshall’s parole eligibility at 18 years — and then reduced it by 27 months —because Marshall spent more than two years, cumulatively, in segregation.