Murderer eligible for parole in 6 years
Pot dispute led to fatal stabbing
A LaSalle man who was convicted of murder will have at least six years to think about the chances he had to walk away from a dispute.
During a sentence hearing at the Montreal courthouse on Monday, Superior Court Justice Sophie Bourque was reminded of how Christopher Levers, 33, could have easily avoided a conflict with Dave Lockhart, 28, that ended in Levers fatally stabbing Lockhart on March 27, 2010.
A dispute over the quality of a small quantity of marijuana is what drew Levers and Lockhart into a fight in a parking lot behind a dépanneur in LaSalle. But neither man was directly involved in the pot transaction. The night before Lockhart was killed, friends of his sold marijuana to someone who knew Levers.
“How it got to this point the day after — I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows,” defence lawyer Alan Guttman said while trying to point out the lack of premeditation involved. But at the same time, Guttman’s comment highlighted the senselessness of Lockhart’s death.
Guttman had asked that his client be eligible for full parole on his automatic life sentence after he serves the minimum 10 years behind bars.
Guttman noted the jury that found Levers guilty of second-degree murder, on Dec. 1, deliberated for seven days and was unable to come up with a unanimous sentence recommendation. Two jurors recommended the 10-year minimum while the other 10 offered no recommendation at all.
Bourque made reference to what the two jurors recommended when she announced her decision and opted for the 10-year minimum. She noted Levers will be serving a life sentence and that the Parole Board of Canada will ultimately determine when he can be released.
Levers has been detained for almost four years while awaiting the outcome of his case, so he must serve a little more than six before becoming eligible for parole.
It has been a long road to the sentencing stage of this case. Levers underwent almost a full murder trial in 2012 but it ended abruptly when the judge in that case declared a mistrial because of an incident during the final arguments. Jacques Dagenais, the prosecutor in the 2012 case, handled a jacket Levers was wearing when he killed Lockhart, putting his hand in one of the pockets. However, the jacket was potential new evidence because Levers had testified about how he had kept the knife he used to stab Lockhart in his jacket, and it had not yet been analyzed forensically.
The second trial began on Oct. 15, 2013.
Guttman revealed during the sentence hearing Monday that Levers had been willing to plead guilty to manslaughter but the Crown refused to accept the offer.
Prosecutor Catherine Perreault had asked that Levers serve at least 13 years before he becomes eligible for a release.
“What started out as a fist fight could have stayed a fist fight, but Mr. Levers took out a knife and stabbed Mr. Lockhart,” Perreault said.
While making her argument, the prosecutor pointed out that Levers had at least a few opportunities to simply walk away from a dispute that had nothing to do with him.
Before she sentenced Levers, Bourque asked him if there was anything he wanted to say.
“I just want to say I had no intention for this to happen,” Levers said before apologizing to members of Lockhart’s family and his own. Members of both families were in the courtroom at the time.