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Criminal - Sentencing - Peace Officer Defendant. R. v. Thomas
In R. v. Thomas (Ont CA, 2025) the Ontario Court of Appeal considered the sentencing role of "the uniquely harsh conditions of incarceration" that a former corrections officer would be subject to in prison:[7] We take no issue with Mr. Thomas’s submission that a sentencing judge should consider the uniquely harsh conditions of incarceration an offender will experience when calibrating a fit sentence: R. v. Quinn, 2024 ONSC 1073, at para. 49; R. v. Cook, 2010 ONSC 5016, at para. 43, appeal dismissed as abandoned, 2014 ONCA 764. However, we are not satisfied that the trial judge failed to take this into account. She was fully cognizant of Mr. Thomas’s former role as a correctional officer, and no doubt of the reality that given that role, a custodial sentence would pose risks for him if incarcerated. However, the mitigating effect of the hardship of the conditions in which the sentence will be served is itself diminished in this case by the fact that Mr. Thomas would have fully understood the risk he was assuming when he acted but was no doubt confident that his very role would protect him. The impact of the fresh evidence of risk to Mr. Thomas is also tempered by (i) the fact that it confirms that his former role as a correctional officer has remained unknown in the prison setting, and (ii) by his current minimum-security classification and placement.
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