Convicted polygamists to be sentenced June 26

Two convicted polygamists from the fundamentalist Mormon community of Bountiful will be sentenced on Tuesday, June 26.

Winston Blackmore, 61, and James Oler, 53, were convicted last July, but only had their convictions registered in March following Blackmore’s failed attempt to have his conviction stayed because of breaches to his constitutional rights.

The maximum sentence for the Criminal Code offence is five years in prison. The prosecutor has asked for much shorter sentences.

For Blackmore, who was convicted for having 24 wives, the Crown is asking for a sentence of between three and six months in jail. For Oler, who was convicted for having four wives, prosecutor Peter Wilson has suggested between one and three months.

The two former bishops of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints are the first men in modern Canadian history to be convicted of polygamy. The convictions came only after the law itself was the subject of a constitutional reference case in the B.C. Supreme Court where it was determined that the law was valid because the inherent harms of polygamy require reasonable limits on religious freedom. Until then, prosecutors in the B.C. attorney-general’s ministry had refused to lay charges, citing legal opinions that the law breached constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion, association and free expression. It is against that backdrop of long-standing uncertainty that dates back to the 1990s when Blackmore was first investigated by RCMP along with Oler’s father, Dalmon, that special prosecutor Peter Wilson recommended sentences far short of the maximum.

At the sentencing hearing earlier this month, Wilson also noted that both men practised polygamy out of “sincerely held religious beliefs” and that except for taking multiple wives (including a number under the legal marriage age), they are both law-abiding, hard-working and honest men.

Blackmore’s lawyer Blair Suffredine urged Justice Sheri Donegan to consider all possible sentences, including an absolute discharge since all of the media attention focused on the trial has been enough to send a message to others that polygamy is not legal.

Oler, who is not represented by a lawyer, made no submissions on what an appropriate sentence might be.