Pubdate: Thu, 20 Feb 2014
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2014 Times Colonist
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/letters.html
Website: http://www.timescolonist.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Referenced: Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-15.html

MINIMUM FOR DRUG OFFENCES UNCONSTITUTIONAL: JUDGE

VANCOUVER - A provincial court judge has ruled that a one-year 
mandatory minimum sentence for drug trafficking recently introduced 
by the federal government is a violation of the Charter of Rights and 
declared it "of no force and effect."

B.C. provincial court Judge Joseph Galati instead sentenced Joseph 
Ryan Lloyd on Wednesday to 191 days behind bars, saying the 
25-year-old from Alberta was a low-level dealer selling drugs to 
support his own addiction. "Provincial court judges in the City of 
Vancouver deal constantly with drug addicts who resort to crime to 
feed their addictions," Galati wrote in a decision last month on an 
application in the case.

Lloyd was convicted in September of three counts of possessing crack, 
methamphetamine and heroin for the purpose of trafficking. He has 21 
prior convictions, including fraud or forgery offences, thefts, 
assault, possession of a prohibited weapon and - most significantly - 
a 2012 trafficking charge.

With a credit for time served prior to sentencing, Lloyd spent 27 
days behind bars for that offence and got out of prison about a month 
before his arrest in the current case, the judge noted in January. 
Lloyd also committed five more offences while on bail for the latest 
trafficking charge. As a result, he has been in custody since May 2013.

Under the Conservatives' new tough-on-crime measures, anyone 
convicted of trafficking who has been convicted for a similar offence 
in the preceding 10 years faces a minimum sentence of one year in jail.

In the earlier written decision, Galati acknowledged Parliament's 
right to fashion a drug sentencing regime "which stresses 
denunciation and deterrence over other sentencing objectives ..."

The Vancouver judge even agreed that a one-year sentence "is not 
grossly disproportionate" for Lloyd. But he described Lloyd as a 
low-level dealer, trafficking to support his own addiction.

"This is a situation which happens daily in the Downtown East side of 
Vancouver and is in no way a far-fetched or extreme scenario," the 
judge wrote in January.

- - The Canadian Press
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