Court grants blacks special sentencing (Canada)

Thursday's Globe and Mail ^ | Thursday, February 13 – Online Edition, Posted at 2:23 AM EST | KIRK MAKIN

[kaylar]

Sentences for black offenders can be reduced or tailored to reflect the systemic racism that has historically plagued their community, the Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled.

It said those most suited to this sort of special treatment will be offenders whose crimes involved minimal violence and whose troubled lives can reasonably be linked to inequality.

The ruling was hailed Wednesday as a breakthrough for a minority which, like aboriginals, has suffered historical inequalities and is over-represented in the justice system.

The 3-0 judgment came in a case involving Quinn Borde, a black gunman from Toronto's seedy Regent Park area. The 18-year-old admitted to firing a gun repeatedly into the air while being chased by a gang and pistol-whipping a rival later.

Mr. Justice Marc Rosenberg noted that Mr. Borde never knew his father and that his mother had serious mental problems. He was bounced between foster homes and often ran away. Mr. Borde abuses alcohol, has little education and faces limited job opportunities.

Mr. Borde's trial judge gave him a total of five years and two months in prison. He had already served 31 months in pretrial custody. On appeal, lawyer David Tanovitch, representing Mr. Borde, argued for a reduction on the basis of "systemic and background factors."

The court concluded in its 3-0 ruling that while Mr. Borde's behaviour was too serious to entitle him to lenient sentencing based on his background, other cases will likely arise that do.

Judge Rosenberg said that since research clearly shows the existence of systemic racism against blacks, "background and systemic factors facing African Canadians — where they are shown to have played a part in the offence — might be taken into account in imposing sentence."

"Systemic racism and the background factors faced by black youths in Toronto are important matters and in another case I believe that they could affect the sentence," he said, on behalf of Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor and Madam Justice Karen Weiler.

However, the court noted that the need to consider systemic racism against blacks is less of an imperative than it is for natives. It said Parliament and the Supreme Court of Canada have made it explicitly clear that alternative sentences are to be routinely considered in the case of natives.

Mr. Tanovitch said the biggest impact of the ruling will probably be felt among blacks convicted of drug offences.

"This is because the systemic factors of over-representation, differential enforcement and discriminatory sentencing are particularly pronounced in drug cases," Mr. Tanovitch said in an interview.

"For too long the collateral effects of systemic discrimination have not been recognized by our courts in the sentencing of African Canadians," he said. "Recognition that these effects are relevant paves the way for a rethinking of the manner in which we sentence black offenders."

University of Toronto law professor Kent Roach said it is significant that the ruling quoted extensively from the results of a 1995 Ontario inquiry into systemic racism in the justice system.

Eight years after the inquiry report was quietly shelved by the province because its findings about systemic discrimination were too controversial, Prof. Roach said, it has gained a strong measure of credibility.

"This ruling should encourage counsel and trial judges to make more use of the report," Prof. Roach said. "At the same time, the report needs to be updated to see whether the issues are the same. Intuition suggests that things have probably gotten worse."

The appeal panel agreed to reduce Mr. Borde's sentence by a year, but said it was because the trial judge was so intent on deterring other criminals that he forgot to pay attention to Mr. Borde's youth.

"The length of a first penitentiary sentence for a youthful offender should rarely be determined solely by the objectives of denunciation and general deterrence," said Judge Rosenberg, an expert on sentencing issues.

He said that while the offences were serious and demand a penitenitary sentence, "these circumstances, however, had to be balanced against the appellant's age and his chaotic background as part of a dysfunctional family being raised in poverty by a mother who unfortunately had few parenting skills and suffered from a mental illness."

[kaylar]

"Systemic racism" be d**ned ; nobody should get a reduced sentenced for a crime based on melanin levels, while a white guy who does the same crime gets the book thrown at him. And this "chaotic life ", no father, drug and alcohol abuse, poverty criterias....how long does anyone think that will last? I predict fatherless whites from a poverty-stricken, alcoholic mom/multiple foster home background will not be allowed to use their situation as an excuse, while middle or upper class black kids who commit crimes on a dare ("keepin' it real") will be treated as if they were born in an 1890s Mississippi small town. In other words, sooner or later this will turn into race-based sentencing, and I doubt that "minimal violence" criterion will last, either. A two-tier sentencing, with whites being held to a much higher standard at every turn is what I predict, if this goes through.

I wonder how long it will be before a "legal scholar" tries to get a ruling like this from a US court?

[GoAhead-Make My Day]

I think I'm gonna puke.

[AppyPappy]

Sentences for black offenders can be reduced or tailored to reflect the systemic racism that has historically plagued their community

Hmmmm....since the vast majority of their victims are black, doesn't this amount to racism as well?

[kaylar]

They claim that this will only apply to crimes of "minimal violence"....For now...

[try phecta tom]

I disagree. When this wheel finally turns full circle a white will be able to say: I was raised by two parents, went to church, loved my country......in the near future this will be considered depraved upbringing and who knows, in another 10 years or so will be eligible for reparations

[kaylar]

Can you delete half the title? It double posted, and I didn't look at the title in preview...Sorry!

[newgeezer]

I wonder how long it will be before a "legal scholar" tries to get a ruling like this from a US court?

Do let us know when the possibility arises.

Meanwhile, I'm writing this off as just another in a long list of non-newsworthy oddities that only serve to illustrate the fact that Canada is not a northern version of the USA.

[kaylar]

If Judge Burton Katz is to be believed, Canada now has a de jure version of a de facto USA situation: Harsher sentencing for whites. He discusses the tendency of courts to give more lenient sentencing to blacks in his book Justice Overruled .

[Teacher317]

It's getting worse. Let's hope SCOTUS keeps its sanity.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

...some animals are more equal.

[kaylar]

Thanks!

[aCDNinUSA]

Read this and puke - from one disgusted Canadian who thinks that Canada has sunk to another new low catering to
minorities. Canada should have let them rot over in Jamaica.

Toronto Sun
Thursday, February 13, 2003
Canuck pair in island arrest booted

By Ian Robertson

KINGSTON, Jamaica -- Two Canadian passport holders detained by Jamaican police as suspects in an alleged smuggling ring of illegal aliens from the Middle East should be home by tomorrow night, sources told The Toronto Sun.

A deal was struck last night for the security chief of Air Canada to fly here either today or tomorrow to escort the two men back to Ontario, said a source close to the investigation.

The men will not face charges when they return, but officials hope they will provide information for the probe.

Commissioner Francis Forbes, of the Jamaican Constabulary Force, said the investigation is preliminary.

But a source close to the probe said 20 FBI agents arrived in Jamaica Monday, one day after officials at Sangster International Airport detained 10 adults and two children on an Air Jamaica flight from Havana, Cuba. The group insisted they were on a stopover en route to Belize.

ARAB HELP

But Jamaican authorities said they carried temporary visas of questionable origin.

Forbes said Arab interpreters are helping with the interrogation of what he called "high-risk" people, who are being held by police in Montego Bay.

A source said nine suspects were born in Iraq, including Mazin Odish, 26, and Ali Hussein Dalloul, 30, originally from the United Arab Emirates. Both carried Canadian passports issued in Windsor.

The source said RCMP and Canadian immigration officers contacted Jamaican police after the Canadian High Commission here was notified of the two men with Canadian passports being detained. ties.

[First Amendment]

Mr. Justice Marc Rosenberg noted that Mr. Borde never knew his father and that his mother had serious mental problems. He was bounced between foster homes and often ran away. Mr. Borde abuses alcohol, has little education and faces limited job opportunities.

This reminds me of when Newt Gingrich said that orhpanages would be a good idea for neglected children, and the liberals in turn considered him an incarnation of evil. Obviously this perp needs to be punished, but at the same time kids "raised" the way he was do have a hard time growing up human, and IMHO there ought to be orphanages (privately run, preferably faith-based) or "Boys Town" type places - to give them a chance to become human beings instead of vicious animals.

[Pukka Puck]

It is racism and preferential treatment.

[fieldmarshaldj]

*Ping* In case you haven't seen this...

[HetLoo]

So what this "court" is saying is they can't help being criminals? Isn't that racist?

[kaylar]

Good point. That's *exactly* what they are saying, and that goes triple for US liberals who obviously assume all blacks are incapable of selfcontrol, solving problems without resorting to violence, meeting academic or employment standards without lowering those standards just for them...

[B Knotts]

Canada is officially a racist state.

[kaylar]

And another thing : This encourages fecklessness. It's like college admissions . A poor white husband and wife can decide to work hard, maybe at 2-3 jobs apiece, set an example of honesty to their children, don't do drugs and get into debt-and know that when the time comes to apply to college, their white children will be considered part of the 'power structure', even if they grew up in a shack with neither electricity or running water. OTOH, if the poor white couple go on welfare, abuse drugs, get arrested, etc....Their children will have "overcome adversity", and so they get a bit more consideration on college applications .

My (white) neice is being paid to attend nursing school, and the government is picking up the tab for her transportation and for child care. All she has to do is maintain a C average. She's 25, has 3 children by 3 different men, and has never been married. People without children and who are not on welfare (as she was)are SOL. They can just stay in their minimum wage jobs and see their tax dollars used to let people like my neice get ahead by stepping on their necks.

This new ruling cannot be said to discourage illegitimacy, drug abuse, getting in trouble with the law at an early age...If you do this and you're the 'right' color, you or yor children will be helped if you get in trouble with the law . Like those who think getting drunk voluntarily should be an "extenuating circumstance" if mayhem results from that drunken state.