Too immature for adult sentence: defence

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This article was published 04/07/2024 (457 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Lawyers for a teen, who’s guilty of the unprovoked murder of a man he lured to Assiniboine Park, urged a judge Thursday not to sentence him as an adult to life in prison, arguing his immaturity and history of mental difficulties demand that he be treated as a youth.

The now-19-year-old man and an 18-year-old female co-accused have pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the slaying of 43-year-old Paul Enns in February 2022.

Under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, youths are considered to be of “diminished moral blameworthiness,” compared to adults. To persuade a court to impose an adult sentence, prosecutors must successfully “rebut” that presumption and satisfy a judge that a youth sentence isn’t long enough to hold an offender accountable.

“The Crown hasn’t satisfied its onus on this application,” defence lawyer Laura Robinson told King’s Bench Justice Vic Toews, arguing the court must consider the man’s personal history and background, not just the circumstances of the killing, when deciding whether to impose an adult sentence.

“The law is clear, the facts alone are not enough to justify an adult sentence,” Robinson said.

The maximum youth sentence for second-degree murder is seven years, at least three years of which must be served under community supervision. The mandatory sentence for a youth sentenced as an adult is life in prison with no chance of parole for seven years.

Enns was found dead in the back seat of his BMW in a parking lot near Conservatory Drive in Assiniboine Park at 3 a.m. on Feb. 26.

Court has been told Enns was lured to the location under the pretext of a sexual encounter after the teens contacted him on social media.

According to an agreed statement of facts, a mutual acquaintance of Enns and the male accused said he witnessed a “physically hostile encounter” between the two men sometime before the killing. No further details of the encounter or when it occurred were provided to court.

The then-15-year-old female offender exchanged more than 100 text messages with Enns in the hours prior to the attack and arranged to meet at the park around midnight. The girl joined Enns in his car and stabbed him with a sharpened screwdriver two times in the leg and once in the neck before the male offender joined the attack and beat Enns to death with his fists and a baseball bat.

In the hours that followed, the teens laughed and bragged to friends about the killing, providing them with grisly details of the attack and claiming they “did it smart” and would not get caught. A day later, the teens used Enns’s credit card at the Polo Park mall to buy popcorn and a pair of runners for the girl.

Robinson argued the man’s actions following the killing showed a clear lack of sophistication and immaturity inconsistent with adult-level thinking.

“There were really no efforts to conceal their criminal activity,” she said.

A psychological report on the man, which was prepared for the defence, outlines a history of untreated mental difficulties, including anxiety, depression and suicide attempts. The man reported that as a child he had been sexually assaulted by a foster sibling.

“We know the kinds of impact (sexual assault) can have on a young person,” Robinson said.

Earlier in the week, a psychiatrist who had conducted a court-ordered examination of the man, testified he met the criteria for a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.

“That is a mental illness and that is something the court has to consider,” Robinson said.

Toews said he was concerned by comments included in court reports that suggest the man was “minimizing” his involvement in the killing and his claims he was “maturing” and was willing to participate in rehabilitative programming.

Toews said the man’s claim in one report that he saw Enns walk to his car after the attack and only learned five days later that he was dead was completely at odds with the “absolute savagery (he) unleashed” on Enns, and his own admissions in the agreed statement of facts.

“How can I believe him on matters that are more subjective?” such as his claim he is willing to take counselling, Toews asked.

While in custody at the Manitoba Youth Centre, the offender was the subject of nearly 30 incident reports, including multiple assaults on other youths and an alleged sexual assault on a younger inmate. In October, he was transferred to an adult jail, where he has been involved in two more alleged assaults, court heard.

“His continued assaultive behaviour, even while in the controlled environment of a custodial facility is greatly concerning,” said Crown attorney Jodi Koffman.

Prosecutors and defence lawyers have jointly recommended the female offender receive the maximum youth sentence of seven years of custody and community supervision, to be served under an intensive rehabilitative custody and supervision order. Under the program, offenders are provided access to one-on-one counselling, occupational therapy, tutoring and other specialized services at a cost of $100,000 a year.

Court has been told the woman was sexually exploited by older males and has a history of self-harm and suicide attempts.

A pre-sentence report says the woman described the male offender — her then-boyfriend — as a manipulator who preyed on her vulnerability as a sex assault victim to convince her to become involved in the attack, falsely claiming Enns was a pedophile.

“It’s clear from the reports that her relationship with (the male accused) was toxic,” Koffman told Toews on Tuesday. “She uses words like puppeteering and grooming when describing her co-accused.”

Toews will sentence both offenders at a later date.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca