R. v. Craig, 2011 ONCA 142

This appeal addressed the relevance on sentencing in cases of spousal homicide of the form of abuse inflicted by the victim. The appellant was charged with the first degree murder of her husband. She admitted stabbing him to death while he was passed out from drinking but argued that she did not have the mens rea for murder as she had killed him in self-defence. There was a great deal of evidence that the she had been in an abusive relationship with the deceased for many years. He had abused her psychologically, verbally, emotionally, and, on a few occasions, physically, and his actions had left the couple and their young son in financial ruin. There was also expert evidence that she suffered from serious mental disorders at the time of the killing.

While the trial judge appreciated the nature of the relationship, he did not believe there was an air of reality to the claim that the appellant apprehended death or grievous bodily harm when she stabbed her husband, or that she believed she had to stab him to preserve herself from such an outcome. He thus declined to put self-defence to the jury. The appellant was found not guilty of murder, but was convicted of manslaughter, and sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appellant’s conviction appeal, finding that what the appellant feared was not death or grievous bodily harm, but having to live with the deceased in the “isolated, destitute, loveless and seemingly hopeless environment [he] had created for them”. However, it allowed her sentencing appeal, concluding that the trial judge erred in two important respects. Firstly, in assessing the mitigating significance of the abuse suffered by the appellant at the hands of the deceased, he focused on the nature of the abuse rather than its impact on the appellant. While he accepted the relevance of the abuse for sentencing, because there had been no serious physical abuse or sexual abuse, he declined to attribute to it the dramatic mitigating effect it has received in other cases of long-term abuse.

The Court of Appeal found this to be in error. It noted that while it may be easier to reach the conclusion that the moral culpability of an abused individual is substantially reduced where that individual has been subjected to abuse with a significant physical component, abuse that is not primarily of a physical nature may nonetheless impact the individual to such an extent that he or she feels equally trapped in the relationship and mentally unable to cope with, or escape from, it. In this case, the Court found that the deceased’s psychological, verbal and emotional abuse combined with intimidation and the realistic fear of physical violence had an overwhelming impact on the appellant, and concluded that the trial judge erred in diminishing its mitigating impact because it did not involve significant physical abuse or sexual abuse.

On the basis of this error, as well as erroneous characterization by the trial judge of the incident as a “near murder”, the Court of Appeal reduced the appellant’s sentence to time served, which was approximately three years.

February 24, 2011
Link to Decision

Julia Wilkes