Crown seeks 11 ½-year sentence in homicide case
Victim Steven Miller’s family describes him as caring, kind, fun-loving and genuine
Nearly five years after Steven Miller was killed, his loved ones’ grief was made clear in the courtroom Tuesday through their own words, read aloud by a prosecutor. Miller was caring, genuine and funloving, his parents and two aunts wrote. He loved hockey, video games and cooking, and, at 25 years old, he had a college diploma, a full-time job and his own home. He was always singing. He had taken his first airplane trip just before he died. He gave the best hugs.
In the section of their statements where they were asked to describe any physical impacts they’ve suffered, the family spoke of emotional pain affecting them physically, calling their grief crippling, crushing and scarring.
The statement of Miller’s father, Lorne, included a hand-drawn image of a broken heart.
Paul Connolly, the last of four men who have pleaded guilty in relation to Miller’s death, will be sentenced today on charges of manslaughter, forcible confinement, robbery and breaches of court orders.
On Tuesday, Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court Justice Donald Burrage heard submissions on an appropriate jail sentence from prosecutors Tannis King and Richard Deveau, and defence lawyers Mark Gruchy and Jeff Brace.
King and Deveau argued for a sentence between 10 1/2 and 11 years, acknowledging they were asking for more on the manslaughter charge alone than what co-accused Chesley Lucas and Calvin Kenny got for the same crime, but offering an explanation. Rehabilitation isn’t a main issue in Connolly’s case, they said, given he’s older and, at age 40, has amassed 172 prior convictions, some of them since he has been in custody.
“Have we reached the point where he is incorrigible?” Deveau asked. “I think he needs to be deterred even further than Mr. Kenny and Mr. Lucas did at that point in their lives.”
A pre-sentence report indicated Connolly had gained insight into his need to turn his life around since the birth of his daughter while he’s been in prison. Deveau said it seemed to be “just words on paper” with no actual proof.
An agreed statement of facts presented in the case indicates Connolly, Lucas and Kenny had the intention of doing a drug “rip” — a robbery — when they forced their way into the Conception Bay South home
Miller shared with his brother and his brother’s girlfriend around 4 a.m. on July
30, 2016.
Miller’s brother was out of town at the time. They dragged Miller out of his bedroom and assaulted him, leaving with him after one of the men poured gasoline around the living room and set it alight.
Multiple 911 calls were made that night, including one from Connolly, gasping for air, and another in which a group of men could be heard yelling.
“Get the f--- up, we are going to bring you to the hospital, man, you got stabbed in the heart, come on,” one of them was heard saying.
In another call, Kenny told the operator he had picked an injured man up on the side of the road and gave an address near where Miller’s body was located in a driveway hours later.
Connolly was picked up on the side of the road in Paradise and taken to hospital, where he was treated for lifethreatening injuries and from where he admitted to police his involvement in Miller’s death.
Kenny and Lucas were sentenced to 12 ½ years in prison for manslaughter, robbery, forcible confinement and arson. Kenny died in February 2019 while serving his sentence and a fellow inmate at Atlantic Institution in Renous, N.B., has been charged with his murder. Lucas appealed his sentence, but lost.
A fourth man, Kyle Morgan,
pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to manslaughter and was sentenced in 2017 to a year behind bars.
Connolly’s lawyers pointed out Tuesday the seriousness of his injuries, even if they were the result of his own voluntary involvement in the crimes. He underwent emergency surgery and lost half of his kidney as a result, they said, and they took issue with the Crown’s argument about the potential for rehabilitation.
“I don’t think anyone can say (Connolly) isn’t an institutionalized person. He is,” Gruchy said, submitting Connolly’s criminal record, however, showed impulsive behaviour rather than organization and planning.
Connolly had been the victim of sexual violence in a youth facility, Gruchy said, and is still suffering from the trauma.
“I’ll say hope never dies. If there’s anything that can happen to a person that can potentially spur him to have some hope of rehabilitation … it would be arguably the birth of a child and having half a kidney destroyed.
“We’re not asking for mercy for Paul Connolly, we’re just asking he be treated the way his peers were,” Gruchy submitted, pointing out Connolly had called 911.
“I’d like to apologize to the family of Steven Miller for the pain and hurt I caused them throughout their life and for the rest of their life,” Connolly said when Burrage offered him the opportunity to address the court.
Connolly said he has often thought about the pain his own mother would go through if she lost a child.
“I am affected by this. I’ve had two chances in my life,” he said — one after he almost died and another after he pleaded down to manslaughter from first-degree murder. “The past of couple years I’ve thought and thought about it, and it did change me and I’m going to show that as I live my life in the future. Hopefully, I’ll get a better handle on myself as life goes on.”
Burrage will deliver his sentencing decision this morning.