Sentencing circle undermined

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The Crown's appeal of a sentencing could undermine the right of Native people to self-determination, opponents say.

Ivan Morin, 34, was sentenced to 18 months for robbery with violence, to be followed 18 months probation and community service. A Metis from Green Lake, Sask., his sentencing circle was the first for an urban area in Saskatchewan.

"We're talking self-government all the time as Metis people and we have the feeling they're not ready to recognize the fact we can settle our own problems," said

Nora Ritchie, President of Metis Local 11 and Senator/Elder for the Metis Women of Saskatchewan.

Ritchie sat in the circle along with 21 others, including an MP, officials from corrections, police and parole officers, Elders and members of the Metis community.

Faye Ahdemar, Director of Gabriel Dumont Institute Community Training Residence, a Saskatoon half-way house for women, was one of the people who set up the circle. She doesn't see it as being much different than a sentencing hearing.

"You can transpose the conventional over top of the traditional and it fits," she said. Both circle and hearing involve a judge, victim, defendant and his advocate, supporters on both sides and community representatives.

"It's just another process or format of the sentencing hearing."

Ahdemar is not surprised the Crown's appeal, since prosecutors always maintained they would appeal, whatever the outcome. But the appeal's outcome could have far-reaching effects.

"The ramifications on self-determination, self-government, our own justice system - when it is incorporated - there are all of those that have to be touched on," she said.

Crown prosecutor Murray Brown said despite the length of the sentence, which is too short in light of Morin's 10-year criminal record, the Crown's concerns are two-fold.

Shortly before Court of Queen's Bench Justice J.D. Milliken made his ruling in the Cheekinew case that sentencing circles are not available for serious crimes. Justice Milliken's decision was exactly the opposite, Brown said.

"For anything where there isn't a mandatory sentence, a sentencing circle is available," Brown said. Both judgments are binding on the provincial court and they are in conflict.

The second concern is the need for a standardized set of rules on how sentencing circles are to be run. Provincial court judges run circles in the north and procedures vary from case to case and judge to judge. How to define what constitutes a community and how to decide who is to sit in the circle are major concerns.

In Morin's case, it wasn't just the Metis community that was affected, added Brown. He and another man, who was sentenced to three years, robbed two white teenage attendants of $131 at a gas bar. DeeAnna Bryson, now a university student, was choked by Morin during the robbery.

"This is particularly important when you're looking at running them in the larger urban centres. We need some guidance from a superior court as to just how to set this up," Brown said.

No date for the appeal has been set.