Chris Selley: No jail time for accessory to a killing? Is anyone OK with this?
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Harm-reduction efforts didn't cause this crisis. Many people who might have overdosed alone or without recourse to help have been saved at facilities like South Riverdale. And now that facility is one of many that don't offer supervised-injection services anymore, in no small part because people like Mohammed and the rogue chocolatier lost the plot and practically begged the provincial government to shut them down, which it did earlier this year. So, well done, everyone.
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Anyway, no word of a lie, Khalila Mohammed won't spend a day behind bars for her astonishing series of decisions on July 7, 2023 — not unless she violates the terms of her so-called 'house arrest,' which allows her to leave home for work, education, to go to the gym, for counselling, for family emergencies, to perform community service … well, OK, it's less 'house arrest' than a 'regular daily routine,' but she's not allowed to be out after 11 p.m.
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The Crown, to its credit, argued for a proper custodial sentence that somewhat fit the crime: two years behind bars. 'People who have done less have been put in jail. A conditional sentence is not sufficient,' prosecutor Jay Spare told Ontario Court of Justice Judge Russell Silverstein. 'Denunciation and deterrence require actual jail.'
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This is a crucial point that often seems lost in modern mainstream criminal-justice discussions: The notions of denunciation and deterrence aren't relics of the Dark Ages; they're explicitly stated goals of criminal sentencing. The victim's widower, Adrian Makurat, seems to be an uncommonly forgiving and magnanimous fellow — more than I think I could be, if my minding-her-own-business wife had been cut down by a bullet allegedly fired by a man out on bail. But that could have been anyone's wife or mother walking along Queen Street East that day in July 2023. It could easily have been one of Mohammed's apparently beloved clients at the health centre. This concerns all of society.
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Criminal justice is usually complicated, and reactionism is often unhelpful, but neither is always the case: This 'sentence' is an abomination. Someone needs to answer for it — and for many other sentences besides — and in this case, it's not Prime Minister Mark Carney or his predecessor Justin Trudeau. Silverstein is a provincial appointment. The maximum sentence available under the law was 14 years in prison. Mohammed got zero, and two hours a day to work out at her local GoodLife Fitness, which — in the absence of any government or judicial action — should perhaps consider cancelling her membership.
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