Defendant awarded two months off impaired driving sentence
By Peggy Revell on May 4, 2018.
prevell@medicinehatnews.com @MHNprevell Two months of an impaired driving sentencing was literally walked off as of Tuesday, with duty counsel successfully arguing that time already spent with a suspended licence should count toward the final penalty. In the case of impaired driving sentences, year-long driving suspensions start on the day of conviction. In this incident heard at the Medicine Hat Provincial Court, the accused was pulled over by police on March 4, and charged with impaired driving over 0.08. There was no injury or accident from his driving, the court heard — and the guilty plea was entered early on. Alongside the typical fine of $1,000 and $300 victim surcharge, acting duty counsel for the day, James Rouleau, successfully argued that the accused be given credit of two months toward the suspension for time that the accused has had to go without his licence. The sentence follows in the footsteps of the R v Sohal case in Calgary, where a man pled guilty to impaired driving some two weeks before the scheduled trial of this and two related offences. The Crown argued that the driving suspension program is a provincial regime, and not a criminal code one. Meanwhile, defence argued that the suspension provisions fall under judicial interim release conditions — therefore credit must be given to the offender. Ultimately, this judge granted the defendant credit of 224 days toward the one-year minimum prohibition — likening it to how pre-trial custody credit is granted for those in remand prior to conviction. This case is already in the process of being appealed — but similar rulings have since occurred in other lower courts in the province. 11
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