Fatal choices, tough consequences
Judges in two courts grappled this week with a question that has no easy answer: What is a just and proportionate sentence for someone who chooses to drink and drive and then kills someone?
For the families of loved ones whose lives are cruelly ended by this, the most preventable of crimes, there is no just or adequate sentence.
A lengthy jail term for the perpetrator will not bring back a father, mother, sister, brother or friend. Fines will never compensate for such a loss. Lengthy driving bans offer no comfort.
Long after the offender has paid his or her debt to society, those mourning the victim speak of an emotional pain that never subsides.
For the family of Garry Tatham, a 72-year-old Reginan killed by a chronic repeat drunk driver last June, the pain is still raw. Yesterday brought limited closure when the driver who killed Tatham, 42-year-old Brian Okemahwasin of Saskatoon, was sentenced to seven years and seven months in a federal penitentiary.
Okemahwasin has been in custody since June 8, 2014 — the day his truck slammed into Tatham’s stationary car at a red light at Albert Street and 6th Avenue North. Okemahwasin was travelling at 94 km/h.
To even the most dispassionate observer, Okemahwasin has run out of second chances. He’s been convicted of drinking and driving offences four times and has amassed more than 200 convictions, from violence or weapons-related offences to property crimes. He has been sent to jail 52 times, the longest previous sentence being 15 months.
Though Regina Provincial Court Judge Jeff Kalmakoff considered factors that have contributed to Okemahwasin’s life of alcoholism and crime — he was abused in a residential school and his sister was murdered in 1992 — the judge noted he’d had many chances to turn his life around but had been “unable, or unwilling to do so.” Though Okemahwasin’s penalty is significant (equivalent to nine years including remand credit), the Crown had sought a 10-year term — and most offenders do not serve their entire sentence because of statutory release/parole eligibility.
In another case Thursday, the Crown asked the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal to impose a tougher sentence for an impaired driver who crashed his car into a semi in Regina, killing one of his passengers and injuring two others.
Crown prosecutor Dean Sinclair noted that Canadian courts are imposing harsher sentences for such crimes and said the 30-month jail term in this case was inadequate.
Someone who chooses to drink and drive has no regard for the safety and well-being of others.
When it comes to impaired driving causing death, it is not a big stretch, in our view, to argue that future sentencing guidelines consider mandatory minimums, such as the 10 years before parole eligibility imposed for second-degree murder.
TAKING A HARDER LINE WITH IMPAIRED DRIVERS WHO KILL.