Case information

None.

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

Criminal law – Sentencing – Considerations – Appeals – Powers of Court of Appeal – Court of Appeal increasing sentence – Whether the majority of the Court of Appeal erred in substituting sentence it considered appropriate for one imposed by trial judge – Whether the majority of the Court of Appeal erred in law by intervening without deference to vary the sentencing judge’s sentence – Whether this undermines the credibility of the system and the authority of trial courts – Whether the majority of the Court of Appeal erred in law by rigidly applying a range of sentence for narcotic trafficking and arbitrarily determining that twelve months’ incarceration was a fit sentence.

The applicant entered the Edmonton Maximum Institution as a visitor. A narcotics sniffer dog approached her. The correctional officers conducted a strip search. Almost immediately the applicant told the officers that she had concealed drugs in her vagina. A subsequent search located a baggie containing four Tylenol-4 and three Tylenol-3 pills (both containing codeine) and four grams of marijuana. The institutional value of the drugs was approximately $1,950. During the search, and again to the investigating officers, the applicant stated that her boyfriend was an inmate at the institution and was pressuring her to smuggle in the drugs. It was not until April 2015 that the applicant changed her plea and entered two guilty pleas. The applicant had no prior criminal record. She was a nurse and had worked in that capacity at the Edmonton Remand Centre for at least two years but had quit that job shortly before May 25, 2013. The sentencing judge imposed an intermittent sentence of 90 days actual incarceration together with probation for a period of two years. A majority of the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal. A sentence of 12 months actual incarceration was imposed, less credit for the time actually served under the intermittent sentence. Berger J.A. would have dismissed the appeal.