In December 2011, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government brought into force a serious law with a ridiculous name: The Protecting Canadians by Ending Sentence Discounts for Multiple Murders Act.
Until then, the maximum sentence for first-degree murder was life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. Even if someone committed several crimes, they served those sentences concurrently, not consecutively.
The parole board wasn’t obligated to give someone parole after 25 years, or ever, of course.
Still, it meant Canadian courts had no power to punish someone more severely for committing several murders.
The new law gives sentencing judges discretion to apply sentences consecutively. In theory, someone convicted of three first-degree murders might serve his or her sentences in sequence, leaving them ineligible for parole for 75 years.
At the same time, the government eliminated the “faint hope” clause, which let inmates apply for early parole in exceptional circumstances.
Which brings us to Travis Baumgartner.
In June 2012, Baumgartner, then 21, a trainee armed guard with G4S Security in Edmonton, turned his gun on four colleagues, killing three — Michelle Shegelski, Edgardo Rejano and Brian Ilesic — and leaving a fourth, Matthew Schuman, with serious brain injuries.
In court Monday, Baumgartner pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of Schuman, to two counts of second- degree murder for killing Shegelski and Ilesic, and to one count of first-degree murder for killing Rejano, who was shot last outside the University of Alberta’s HUB Mall.
Two years ago, the heaviest sentence Baumgartner could have received was life in prison, with no chance of parole for 25 years. Instead, he is the first person in Canada sentenced under the new law.
In a joint submission, Crown prosecutor Steven Bilodeau and defence lawyer Peter Royal recommended Baumgartner serve his sentences for shooting Schuman, Shegelski and Ilesic concurrently, but that for shooting Rejano, it should be consecutively.
The judge accepted the deal on Wednesday, and Baumgartner will be ineligible for parole for 40 years from the day of his arrest. The earliest he can apply to the parole board is 2052, just after his 61st birthday.
It is an unprecedented sentence and, as Bilodeau pointed out in court, the heaviest sentence imposed in Canada since 1962, when Arthur Lucas and Ronald Turpin were hanged at Toronto’s Don Jail.
For some, though, even 40 years won’t be long enough. Some have already questioned why the Crown didn’t seek the full 75-year maximum.
Certainly, it’s not easy to have much sympathy for Baumgartner, a callous killer who betrayed his colleagues out of greed and spite, who acted out his own action movie or video game, heedless of human consequences.
He seems the perfect poster child for Harper’s new law. But the very immaturity of his crime is telling. Baumgartner is so young. He had no previous record. In court on Monday, he looked like a sullen manchild, sulking in the naughty chair.
In 40 years, he could be a changed person. To take away all hope of release wouldn’t just condemn him to death behind bars, it would also give him no reason or motivation to refrain from violence while in prison. A prison system full of such hopeless, desperate men could be frightening indeed.
There are also more practical considerations. Baumgartner might well have fought this case in court and fought the new sentencing rules on constitutional grounds. That could have taken years, dragging out the agony for the four families he ripped apart. This plea deal spares the Crown and the survivors from that.
It’s a bleak compromise, which demonstrates the revulsion people felt at Baumgartner’s vicious crime while still giving him a chance to pay his social debt.
This judgment, the first of its kind in Canada, will be closely watched and widely cited.
