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Abstract: Transcript of the Reasons for Sentence
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R. v. Laliberte, 2013 NWTSC 70 S-1-CR-2012-000087
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
IN THE MATTER OF:
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN
- V -
JAKE LALIBERTE
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Transcript of the Reasons for Sentence by The Honourable
Justice L. A. Charbonneau, sitting in Fort Simpson, in
the Northwest Territories, on the 24th day of September,
A.D., 2013.
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APPEARANCES:
Mr. A. Godfrey: Counsel for the Crown
Mr. S. Petitpas: Counsel for the Defence
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Charge under s. 151 Criminal Code of Canada
PUBLICATION BAN UNDER SECTION 486.4 CRIMINAL CODE
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1 THE COURT: This afternoon it is my
2 responsibility to impose a sentence on Jake
3 Laliberte for the serious offence that he has
4 pleaded guilty to, the offence of having touched
5 for a sexual purpose a person under the age of 16
6 years old contrary to Section 151 of the Criminal
7 Code.
8 This offence can cover a broad range of
9 conduct, anything from simply touching someone
10 over their clothes, all the way to more serious
11 interferences with a person. In this case what
12 was involved was an act of full intercourse
13 with the victim. She was too young to be in
14 law capable of consenting to sexual activity,
15 and she was also highly intoxicated and, as the
16 accused acknowledges, incapable of consenting
17 for that reason even if she had been over the
18 age of 16.
19 This offence can be punished by a maximum
20 of ten years in jail and a minimum of one year
21 in jail, which shows how seriously the law treats
22 it. The case law and the decisions of this Court
23 in this jurisdiction is to the same effect.
24 In this jurisdiction, where unfortunately the
25 sexual assault of an intoxicated person is a
26 very prevalent crime, it is treated seriously
27 by the Courts even when the victim is an adult.
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1 Obviously if the victim is not an adult it makes
2 it all the more serious.
3 Sadly, the circumstances that I heard
4 about earlier today are very common in this
5 jurisdiction. I would say that almost every
6 week the Courts deal with similar offences
7 committed in circumstances where persons are
8 under the influence of alcohol often times,
9 and commit very serious violations upon others
10 who are also under the influence of alcohol.
11 There is a long list of decisions from
12 this Court and the Territorial Court dealing
13 with just that type of scenario. People in
14 these circumstances are sentenced for having
15 sexually assaulted members of their own families,
16 good friends, relatives, sometimes acquaintances,
17 or other times, like here, people who simply
18 happen to be in their home at the time.
19 It is very difficult to understand why
20 these crimes are so prevalent here and why,
21 despite their devastating impact, they continue
22 to take place. These crimes have devastating
23 impacts on the people who are assaulted, they
24 have devastating impacts on people such as the
25 accused here, who are young and will have to be
26 sent away for a long time to jail because of what
27 he has done, and obviously there is a devastating
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1 impact on the families of everyone involved.
2 The Courts do not have the answer to the
3 question of why these things keep happening, and
4 the solution to these problems is not something
5 that can come from the Courts. It is something
6 that will have to come from the communities
7 themselves, and hopefully one of the things
8 that maybe could come out of a case like this
9 one, one of the more positive things, is to raise
10 awareness and be a motivation for people to take
11 action to try to address some of the underlying
12 issues that lead to these things. Because it
13 is always sad and disturbing to deal with these
14 types of crimes, but it is especially sad and
15 disturbing to hear about these types of crimes
16 committed against a young person.
17 The victim impact statement that was filed
18 in this case illustrates in very simple terms
19 the type of harm that these crimes can cause.
20 Things that this particular victim refers to,
21 the hurt that she feels, her loss of trust in
22 others, the feeling that this hurt will never
23 go away, I am sad to say, are the types of
24 comments that victims often make in cases like
25 this one. The Court can only hope that in time
26 and with some help this young woman will be able
27 to recover from these events.
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1 I also hope, as I have referred to
2 already, that this type of case, and this one
3 in particular, will continue to cause things
4 to be talked about in the community. The abuse
5 of alcohol, the scars from the past, unhealthy
6 relationships, are all things that are very
7 difficult to talk about, but unless and until
8 members of the community come together to
9 grapple with these kinds of issues things
10 will not change. They certainly cannot be
11 changed by outsiders.
12 All that being said, in the meantime the
13 Court does have the duty and the unfortunate
14 task of dealing with the results of what has
15 happened and decide what a fit sentence is
16 every time a crime like this takes place, and
17 it is not a happy task. There is nothing happy
18 about sending a young man like this one, who
19 obviously has valuable skills and can be a
20 productive member of this community, to jail,
21 especially knowing some of the hurdles that he
22 has had to overcome to get to where he is today.
23 But in the face of such a serious crime
24 it is the only response that the Court can
25 have, and in this case the Crown and defence
26 acknowledge this because the submission that
27 they have presented jointly is for a significant
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1 term of imprisonment to be imposed. I will say
2 at the outset that I have decided to accept their
3 recommendation and their joint submission as to
4 what the sentence should be, at least as far as
5 what the jail term should be.
6 But I do want to explain a little bit
7 more why such a significant jail term has
8 to be imposed. The law is well established
9 in this jurisdiction that when dealing with
10 serious sexual offences, and this is a serious
11 sexual offence, the most significant sentencing
12 principles are deterrence and denunciation.
13 Deterrence means discouraging this accused
14 and other persons from committing this type
15 of offence. Denunciation means sending out
16 the message that this type of conduct is
17 wrong and unacceptable in this community.
18 The prevalence of this type of crime adds
19 to the need for deterrence and denunciation.
20 This is especially so when, as here, the offence
21 is not at the more minor end of the scale of
22 seriousness. This was not a minor interference
23 with the victim, it was a serious violation of
24 her personal and sexual integrity.
25 As was mentioned earlier this afternoon
26 during submissions, in this jurisdiction the
27 starting point on sentencing for serious sexual
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1 assaults, such as an act of full intercourse
2 without a person's consent or when the person
3 is not capable in law of consent, is three years
4 imprisonment. When that assault is committed on
5 a child by a person who is in a position of trust
6 or authority the starting point is actually four
7 years.
8 Here we have a non-adult victim, but the
9 accused I recognize was not in a parental role
10 or in a position of authority towards her.
11 So the appropriate starting point to use
12 is somewhere between three and four years.
13 There are aggravating factors in this case.
14 The first is the victim's age. The Criminal
15 Code makes that an aggravating factor as a matter
16 of law now, but it has long been treated as an
17 aggravating factor in any event by this Court
18 when the victim of a crime like this is a young
19 person. This too fits somewhere on a scale.
20 This victim was not a very young child, but
21 the fact remains that she was a teenager,
22 whereas the accused was an adult man.
23 All adults have a duty to protect and
24 assist younger people, and even when a young
25 person behaves in a way where perhaps they
26 are not taking the best care of themselves or
27 are not making the best choices to look after
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1 themselves, there is an underlying duty in all
2 adults to assist them, and certainly there is
3 a duty not to take advantage of them. So her
4 age is an aggravating factor here, especially
5 considering that the accused was about 11 years
6 older than her.
7 It is also aggravating, in my view,
8 that the victim was in an even more vulnerable
9 position because of her state of intoxication.
10 The accused was intoxicated as well, I recognize
11 that, but still he took advantage of someone who
12 was evidently not in any position to make proper
13 decisions or take steps to protect herself.
14 There are mitigating factors as well.
15 The most significant one is the guilty plea.
16 I recognize, based on the facts that were
17 admitted, that there appears to have been
18 a strong case against Mr. Laliberte. There
19 was DNA confirming that sexual activity took
20 place; the victim's age, making her consent not
21 possible in law; evidence of her intoxication;
22 and apparently people who saw at least some of
23 what happened.
24 But still, a guilty plea is always a
25 significant mitigating factor. It provides
26 a certainty of outcome for victims. It tells
27 the community that the accused is willing to
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1 take responsibility for his wrongdoing, and
2 hopefully that can avoid or reduce the amount
3 of blame that can be shifted onto the victim,
4 because unfortunately in every community, it
5 seems, there always are some people who, in
6 a situation like this, prefer to focus on the
7 victim's conduct instead of focussing on the
8 conduct of the person who has committed the
9 crime.
10 It takes courage to acknowledge our own
11 wrongdoings, and it is beneficial to victims,
12 in the Court's experience, to know that the
13 accused does admit responsibility. That is
14 why the guilty plea has such great value, and
15 I think that value perhaps is even greater
16 in a smaller community. And, of course, the
17 guilty plea is an indication of true remorse.
18 Giving up the right to have a trial is not a
19 small thing.
20 This guilty plea was not an early guilty
21 plea, it came just as we were about to begin
22 jury selection. But I also know that this
23 trial was to take place on matters involving
24 two complainants, and the Crown is not proceeding
25 with respect to the second one. That puts
26 Mr. Laliberte's guilty plea into context too.
27 It is somewhat similar to when a person pleads
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1 guilty at the 11th hour, but to a charge that
2 is less serious than what they were to be tried
3 on. When the Crown is willing to change the
4 jeopardy that a person faces, that goes some
5 way to temper the lateness of the guilty plea.
6 I was advised that this victim did not
7 have to testify at the preliminary hearing.
8 This guilty plea this week has avoided the
9 need for her to testify in front of 12 members
10 of this community, and after seeing sexual
11 assault victims testify very frequently I know
12 that sparing someone from having to do that is
13 sparing them a lot.
14 For all of those reasons I am of the
15 view that this guilty plea should be given
16 considerable weight and that Mr. Laliberte
17 is entitled to significant credit for it
18 even though it came late in the process.
19 He has a criminal record, but it is minor
20 and marginally relevant. He has never been
21 sentenced to jail before. It is to his credit
22 that by and large he has not been in trouble with
23 the law even though, as his counsel said, he has
24 had some struggles with alcohol and drugs for
25 several years, going back to when he was himself
26 a teenager.
27 I have heard that he has never taken any
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1 counselling to help him deal with those issues,
2 and I do hope he will during the course of his
3 sentence. Many people drink, but do not engage
4 in this kind of conduct while intoxicated. If
5 alcohol has contributed to this type of behavior
6 once it could easily have the same effect in the
7 future. In that sense, I certainly agree with
8 what Mr. Laliberte's sister writes in her letter,
9 which was made an exhibit, where she says that
10 she hopes that these events will help teach
11 everyone involved the effect of the excessive
12 use of alcohol and what it can do to people.
13 I also take into account the fact that
14 Mr. Laliberte has obviously done a lot to acquire
15 training and skills, and he was a valued employee
16 to the people he has worked for as of late. That
17 is also clear from the materials that were filed
18 at the sentencing hearing.
19 I take into account as well that this
20 particular event happened shortly after he
21 experienced the loss of his aunt. That is
22 something that is not an excuse, but perhaps
23 the beginnings of an explanation for how much
24 out of control his drinking had been in the
25 days that preceded these events. But that
26 does not remove his responsibility for his
27 actions.
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1 I have already mentioned the letter
2 prepared by his sister, and I have taken into
3 account other things that she wrote in that
4 letter, about what she knows of his character
5 and what she writes about him more generally.
6 I do not doubt that she knows him to be a good
7 person, a helpful person, and that she finds
8 it difficult to believe he would have harmed
9 anyone or behaved in this way. The letter is
10 dated September 20th, which is last Friday, and
11 it is clear, especially from the last paragraph
12 in the letter, that at the time it was written
13 the author still thought this matter would go
14 to trial.
15 Now that Mr. Laliberte has admitted his
16 wrongdoing hopefully everyone, including his
17 family and loved ones, can come to terms with
18 what he has done and move on on that basis.
19 In sentencing hearings the Court often hears
20 that the person who committed the offence is
21 not a bad person, and it is important to make
22 that distinction between what a person did and
23 who a person is. I do not doubt, from everything
24 I have heard, that Mr. Laliberte has a lot of
25 skills and that a lot of good things can be said
26 about him, but unfortunately that night last year
27 he did a very bad and hurtful thing.
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1 I have taken into account the fact that
2 he is an aboriginal offender, the struggles
3 that he faced in his family situation when
4 he was growing up, which included the abuse
5 of alcohol by both of his parents and the
6 violence that his biological father used
7 towards his mother and towards him. The
8 Criminal Code and the binding jurisprudence
9 require that I take those factors into account
10 in determining what a fit sentence is. It is
11 not a factor that can overtake all the others,
12 but it is something that must be taken into
13 account.
14 I have reviewed the two cases filed by the
15 Crown. Both involve adult victims, and that is
16 an important distinguishing factor between those
17 cases and this one. But those cases do confirm
18 what I have been talking about as far as the
19 prevalence of sexual assaults generally in
20 this jurisdiction.
21 The joint submission that I have been
22 presented with is that I impose a sentence
23 of two and a half years imprisonment, and as
24 I have already said I have concluded that it
25 should be followed. The law is well established
26 that when the Court is presented with a joint
27 submission that position must be given serious
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1 consideration by the Court, and it should be
2 followed unless the Court concludes that it is
3 clearly unreasonable. Here I think that the
4 position presented is not outside the range
5 of what is reasonable. I think it is at the
6 low end of the range, but in my view it is
7 within that range and that is why I have
8 decided to accept it.
9 I do, however, want to make it clear to
10 Mr. Laliberte and to everyone else that given
11 the age of the victim here he could very easily
12 have been sentenced to a much longer jail term.
13 Certainly after trial he could have been looking
14 at a sentence as high as four years or close to
15 it. I mean what I said when I talked about the
16 mitigating effect of a guilty plea, and here of
17 course, as I have said, while I think the joint
18 submission is perhaps at the more lenient end
19 of the spectrum I do think it is reasonable,
20 particularly in light of all of the
21 circumstances. Stand up please, sir.
22 For the offence that you have pleaded
23 guilty to, sir, I am going to go along with
24 the joint submission that was presented, and
25 I have concluded that a sentence of two and a
26 half years is appropriate. For the time that
27 you have spent on remand, about 67 days that
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1 I have heard, I will give you credit roughly on
2 a one-to-one ratio. So there will be a further
3 jail term of two years and four months. I am
4 giving you two months credit for the remand
5 time. You can sit down.
6 Mr. Petitpas, before I forget, you did
7 not ask that I include any recommendation on
8 the Warrant of Committal with respect to where
9 the sentence should be served, but I have also
10 heard that your client's ties are primarily
11 Northern at this point. Did you want to make
12 submissions on that?
13 MR. PETITPAS: Yes, Your Honour. I omitted
14 to make those submissions previously, but the
15 defence will be seeking a judicial recommendation
16 that he be able to serve his time here in the
17 Northwest Territories, and more specifically
18 at the South Mackenzie Correctional Centre.
19 THE COURT: I will do part of what you
20 asked. This decision is not up to me. I cannot
21 order where you will serve your sentence, sir,
22 but I know you have strong support here, and
23 because this is a sentence in the penitentiary
24 range I am going to direct the clerk to put an
25 endorsement, a note on the Warrant of Committal
26 with my very strong recommendation that you be
27 permitted to serve your sentence in the North.
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1 I am not going to go as far as saying
2 which institution because I think that the
3 availability of certain programs and some of
4 the things that might be actually helpful to
5 you may vary from place to place, and I think
6 the Correction people are the people who are
7 in the best position to make that decision.
8 Of course, I am sure as part of their processes,
9 they will find out from you what your preference
10 would be and where your supports are. But
11 certainly, Mr. Clerk, I want there to be a
12 strong recommendation endorsed on the Warrant
13 of Committal that Mr. Laliberte be permitted
14 to serve his sentence here in the Northwest
15 Territories.
16 As far as the ancillary orders, many of
17 the ones that have been sought are mandatory
18 for a case like this. There will be a DNA order
19 because this is a primary designated offence.
20 There will be a firearms prohibition order
21 pursuant to Section 109 of the Criminal Code,
22 which will be in force for 10 years following
23 your release. I will direct that any firearms
24 be surrendered forthwith. Is that a problem,
25 Mr. Petitpas?
26 MR. PETITPAS: Mr. Laliberte has no firearms.
27 THE COURT: There will also be another
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1 order that is mandatory on this type of case,
2 and that is that you comply with the requirements
3 of the Sexual Offender Information Registry
4 Act for a period of 20 years. The clerk
5 will explain to you what that means.
6 I have considered the request for an
7 order under Section 161 of the Criminal Code.
8 That type of order prevents persons from
9 attending areas where young persons are likely
10 to be present, such as swimming pools, parks,
11 schools. The order can also include things
12 like prohibiting someone from doing volunteer
13 work in areas where they may come into contact
14 with children.
15 I realize this was originally part of
16 the joint submission. I have reviewed the
17 provision, and considering the circumstances
18 of this offence, the fact that there is no
19 indication in the facts that there was any
20 planning or deliberate effort by Mr. Laliberte
21 to lure young people to his home and take
22 advantage of them, considering the fact that
23 he has nothing on his criminal record that
24 is relevant to the abuse of young persons,
25 and just considering the overall picture that
26 is painted by the evidence, the facts and the
27 other materials filed, I do not see the need
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1 to restrict his movements in the way that
2 they would be through a Section 161 order.
3 This does not strike me as an event that
4 discloses predatory tendencies or a significant
5 concern that in general in his day-to-day
6 life that Mr. Laliberte is a threat to children.
7 In my estimation that is more the intended scope
8 of Section 161 of the Criminal Code. For those
9 reasons I am not going to make that order.
10 I will, however, make an order that you
11 pay a victim of crime surcharge. That money
12 goes into a general fund that is used to assist
13 victims of crime. So given that you have been
14 employed recently and regularly in the past
15 several months it is appropriate that this
16 order be made. The Criminal Code provides
17 that the amount is $100. Would 30 days be
18 sufficient time to pay?
19 MR. PETITPAS: Your Honour, I believe
20 he can pay it immediately.
21 THE COURT: So I will say seven days,
22 and that is for the victim of crime surcharge.
23 There will be an order that any exhibits
24 that were seized in this investigation be
25 returned to their lawful owners if that is
26 appropriate. If not, they can be destroyed,
27 but that of course should only be at the
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1 expiration of the appeal period.
2 I think I have addressed the various
3 things you have raised. Is there anything
4 I have overlooked, Mr. Godfrey, from the
5 Crown's perspective?
6 MR. GODFREY: I don't believe so, Your
7 Honour.
8 THE COURT: Is there anything I have
9 overlooked from the defence perspective?
10 MR. PETITPAS: No, Your Honour.
11 THE COURT: I want to thank counsel for
12 their work in dealing with this matter generally
13 and specifically in arriving at a resolution and
14 for your submissions on this matter. We will
15 close court.
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18 Certified to be a true and
accurate transcript, pursuant
19 to Rules 723 and 724 of the
Supreme Court Rules.
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22 Joel Bowker
Court Reporter
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