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The quick, community-based sentence given to Const. Alexander Dunn for violently slamming a handcuffed girl to the ground did little to discourage different officers from related habits, a Calgary decide has dominated.
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However Dunn might by no means need to serve a day of the 30-day sentence. Decide Nancy Dilts mentioned he ought to have been sentenced for assaulting Dalia Kafi.
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Dilts briefly stayed the jail sentence whereas she invitations Crown and protection legal professionals to submit written submissions on whether or not a everlasting keep of her determination ought to be imposed.
“Within the circumstances of this case, I’m glad {that a} match and correct sentence requires a interval of incarceration,” Dilts wrote.
“Constable Dunn is due to this fact sentenced to 30 days in jail to be served intermittently, adopted by six months’ probation and 75 hours of group service.”
However the Courtroom of King’s Bench decide mentioned the Supreme Courtroom had decided the place there was a profitable Crown attraction of a sentence, a judicial keep may very well be justified “whether it is within the pursuits of justice to take action. “
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She famous that Dunn had already served his 30-day suspended sentence, which included 15 days of home arrest, and that he had been in court docket since his October 2020 trial.
“He served his sentence in full and with out breach.”
Dilts finds earlier sentence ‘insufficient’
She requested state prosecutor Michael Dunn and protection lawyer Alain Hepner to submit “transient” written submissions inside 30 days “addressing whether or not a keep of execution ought to be ordered.”
Dilts did discover that the community-based sentence imposed by Decide Michelle Christopher on June 29, 2021, was inadequate.
“I’m glad that the 30-day conditional sentence imposed on Constable Dunn didn’t adequately tackle the court docket’s must denounce (his) conduct and to discourage others in his place from committing an identical offense to commit,” mentioned Dilts.
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She mentioned Christopher additionally erred find that neither probation nor group service was warranted.
Prosecutor Dunn (no relation to the offender) argued that the Alberta Courtroom of Justice decide “underestimated the breach of belief that follows when a police officer transgresses,” Dilts famous.
However Hepner argued that the conditional sentence was capable of obtain the goals of condemnation and deterrence.
Justice says officers’ habits ‘have to be condemned’
Citing case legislation, Dilts mentioned the officer’s actions ought to be condemned by the court docket.
“A sentence with a sentencing ingredient represents a symbolic, collective assertion that the offender’s actions have to be punished for violating our society’s fundamental worth code as enshrined in our substantive prison legislation,” she wrote.
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“Within the current case, the trial decide imposed a conditional sentence of 30 days with minimal circumstances and palpable leniency. In doing so, she failed to border a sentence that mirrored the first issues of sentencing and deterrence…
“Constable Dunn’s conviction was left with out significant penalties and consequently achieved neither entitlement nor deterrence.”
Dilts did reject the prosecutor’s argument Christopher failed to contemplate race in figuring out an applicable sentence.
The Crown argued that though the decide discovered that the assault on Kafi, a black girl, was not racially motivated, Christopher ought to have thought of the influence of the crime on racialized communities.
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Dunn was convicted of assault inflicting bodily hurt in reference to a Dec. 13, 2017 incident following the arrest of Kafi, who has since died of an obvious drug overdose, on minor costs.
Whereas being taken into custody, and with Kafi’s fingers handcuffed behind her again, Dunn tried to take away a headband she was sporting and she or he pulled away.
Dunn then forcefully slammed her face first into the onerous flooring.
KMartin@postmedia.com
On Twitter: @KMartinCourts
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