And this;[14] Mr. Thompson is 43 years of age and, as also will be seen, has a serious criminal record. To even pretend to consider the potential for the accused’s rehabilitation would be a joke. If there is even a forlorn hope, the Crown has not brought it to my attention and I have not seen it. Unfortunately, Mr. Thompson might just be one of those for whom ‘burn-out’ is the only cure.
Now no doubt from the above and what you'll read in this posting you're all going to think that he can't be a Freeman because, as we all know, they are all hugs and kisses non-violent peace loving individuals who only want to serve the rest of us by showing us the path to true freeloading freedom. All I can offer in Terry's case as support for his freeman status is his own statement from a pre-trial hearing. He chose not to speak in court;[16] And, true to form, he did not respond when this Court gave him the opportunity to speak during the sentencing hearing. Quite simply, he holds the administration of justice and its institutions in utter contempt; another indicator of the measure of the specific deterrence that will be required.
So I'll start as far back as I can go which, given his rich history of criminal activity, isn't really far enough;[15] The accused was unrepresented at trial. Actually, he did nothing to engage in the trial or to mount any defence. Indeed, he literally did not utter one word. He simply would not respond, no matter what. The Court had to record a plea of not guilty at the outset. This did not come as any surprise. He ended up in this Court before a jury because he would not elect during his appearance in the Provincial Court. On a telephone appearance on Motions Day to confirm the trial date he hung up on the Court - twice. Richly, he then filed under the rubric of a habeas corpus motion a Charter challenge based, inter alia, on being deprived of the right to be heard. Except, on the day the Court was to hear the Motion he refused to come out of the holding cell. His Motion was dismissed. When he did speak in the pre-trial appearances/conference, he would repeat that he was a “Freeman” as if that was explanation for anything and everything; when all it did was leave the impression with the Court that he did not believe he was governed by the rules of society.
[16] And, true to form, he did not respond when this Court gave him the opportunity to speak during the sentencing hearing. Quite simply, he holds the administration of justice and its institutions in utter contempt; another indicator of the measure of the specific deterrence that will be required.
R v Thompson
2013 ONSC 3180
http://canlii.ca/t/fzfds
This was his sentencing hearing for these offenses;
Even back in 2013 he was arguing that he was a Freeman;First of all, in terms of the circumstances of the offence, Mr. Thompson imported 4.2 kilograms of cocaine concealed in his luggage when returning to Canada, plus a credit card writer machine.
Past offenses;While I ordered a pre-sentence report, Mr. Thompson refused to cooperate in the preparation of it. He has maintained his earlier position that as a free sovereign or for some other reason he is not going to speak in court or present any evidence on his own behalf.
The Crown wanted him to get nine years;Mr. Thompson does have a dated but very serious criminal record, with offences in 1993 involving robbery, possession of a weapon, and use of a firearm during the commission of an offence. A further very serious criminal record in 1998, use of a firearm during commission of an offence and aggravated assault.
Remorse? Did somebody say remorse?In terms of the Crown position, it is that nine years on the importing and one year concurrent on the possession of the credit card writer would be appropriate
Mr. Thompson has not advanced any position on his behalf.
The judge somewhat sadly commented that he was tied to the Crown's recommendations regarding sentencing so he couldn't really, as he clearly wished, throw the book at him;I also note that Mr. Thompson is older, he has a very serious criminal record, and he was also in possession of a credit card writer. All of those factors are inconsistent with the typical profile of a drug courier.
It is also a matter of some concern that Mr. Thompson maintains the position that he really is either above the law or outside the law, and that certainly doesn’t hold out any great prospect for rehabilitation. There is no indication of any remorse, which would be a mitigating factor.
With time served he had a seven and a half year sentence running from early 2013 which, if he behaved himself (as far as I understand Canadian sentencing) would have resulted in five years in jail with him being released in a few months from now. Didn't work out that way;In my view, the appropriate sentence on the cocaine importing is nine years. Mr. Walsh is a very experienced counsel so I am certainly not second-guessing his submission, but I think that, if anything, that may be at the low end of the range. One could probably justify a bit more time for Mr. Thompson in the circumstances, but the Crown has submitted nine years, and Mr. Walsh is a very good counsel, so I am going to impose that. I think that is completely proportionate to Cunningham, and when you consider that Mr. Thompson is a principal, and he is also a principal with a serious criminal record.
Secondly, the Crown has submitted that there should be a one-year concurrent sentence on the credit card writer. And again I think one could advance an argument that it should be consecutive and that the totality would still be reasonable, but in light of the Crown’s submission I will impose that as a concurrent sentence.
R. v Thompson
2017 NBQB 81
http://canlii.ca/t/h5cgb
Yet another sentencing hearing;
What was our Bad Boy up to this time? A good old-fashioned jailhouse shanking![1] Last month a jury convicted Terry Thompson of assault causing bodily harm contrary to Section 267 (b) of the Criminal Code. He must now be sentenced.
The sentencing judge found no mitigating circumstances but instead racked these up on the aggravating factor side of the ledger;[3] The offence occurred at the Atlantic Institution, the Atlantic region’s maximum security penitentiary. The accused and the victim were inmates in Unit 1, Range A. Each range contains 20 inmates, housed in separate cells. They all share what is referred to as ‘common room’, a place adjacent to and connected to the range where the inmates can at certain times congregate to socialize, etc. The Crown’s position was that the entirety of the essential legal elements constituting the offence occurred in the ‘common room’.
[4] On the morning of February 8, 2016 a number of inmates were milling about in the common room waiting to be called to outside yard recreation. Most were wearing prison winter type jackets. At least two were not, the accused and Lavare Williams, soon to be the victim. The subsequent events were captured on prison security cameras, supplemented by the recognition of both inmates on the videos by a correctional security investigator familiar with them before the incident in question (See: R v. Nikolovski 1996 CanLII 158 (SCC), [1996] 3 S.C.R. 1197).
[5] The accused can be seen pacing about with his hands in his pocket. Williams is on the other side of the room. Williams then sits in a chair. The accused is seen to suddenly run across the room towards Williams and with his right arm strike at him. The jury would have found (based on the injuries and the motions of the accused) that the accused was striking Williams with a shank (i.e. a homemade weapon). Williams jumps out of his chair during this attack and then runs back to the range with the accused following.
[6] After they both enter the range, it appears that at some point Williams becomes the aggressor and confronts the accused, each appearing to have a “shank” in their hands. I pause to interject that Williams was charged and pleaded guilty in the Provincial Court to assault with a weapon for that occurrence and received 12 months imprisonment.
[7] However, the jury implicitly found that Williams was not injured at this time, but earlier in the common room. Such a finding is supported by the video because there is no evidence Williams was struck by the accused when they were in the range. Also, the position of the accused in relation to the position of the victim at the time of the attack in the common room (to the left side of the victim), along with the nature of the accused’s striking motions at that time, are all consistent with the victims injuries. These findings were open to the jury to make and they had to have made them given the Crown theory and their verdict.
[8] Once the correctional officers’ regained control of the range by discharging tear gas, it was found that the victim had sustained three injuries - two small puncture type wounds to the left upper back and a 2 inch laceration near the ear on the left side of the face. The attending nurse sent the victim to an outside hospital for suturing of the facial laceration. Overnight hospitalization was not required. And, of course, there is no victim impact statement.
Along with the quote right at the beginning of this posting.[15] The accused was unrepresented at trial. Actually, he did nothing to engage in the trial or to mount any defence. Indeed, he literally did not utter one word. He simply would not respond, no matter what. The Court had to record a plea of not guilty at the outset. This did not come as any surprise. He ended up in this Court before a jury because he would not elect during his appearance in the Provincial Court. On a telephone appearance on Motions Day to confirm the trial date he hung up on the Court - twice. Richly, he then filed under the rubric of a habeas corpus motion a Charter challenge based, inter alia, on being deprived of the right to be heard. Except, on the day the Court was to hear the Motion he refused to come out of the holding cell. His Motion was dismissed. When he did speak in the pre-trial appearances/conference, he would repeat that he was a “Freeman” as if that was explanation for anything and everything; when all it did was leave the impression with the Court that he did not believe he was governed by the rules of society.
[16] And, true to form, he did not respond when this Court gave him the opportunity to speak during the sentencing hearing. Quite simply, he holds the administration of justice and its institutions in utter contempt; another indicator of the measure of the specific deterrence that will be required.
[17] Another measure is his criminal record. In 1993 he was convicted in the Province of Ontario and sentenced to a total of 34 months imprisonment for two counts of robbery, one count of possession of a weapon, one count of the use of a weapon during the commission of an offence and one count of using a disguise. Again in the Province of Ontario, he was convicted and sentenced in 1998 to one count of the use of a firearm in the commission of an offence and two counts of aggravated assault for which he received a total sentence of imprisonment of 4 years. And, in 2013 he was convicted of importing a Schedule I substance contrary to the Controlled Drugs and Substance Act, for which he received a sentence of 7 years and 5 months. This would be the reason he was in the Atlantic Institution.
So, while on trial for knifing a fellow inmate, he found the time to knife yet another one. This time the judge wasn't putting up with those soft-hearted Crown prosecutors;[18] As well, the Court is also permitted to take into consideration the fact he committed an aggravated assault on another inmate approximately 6 months before he committed the present offence, even though he had not been convicted of that earlier offence when he committed the present one. He and a co-accused were sentenced earlier today by another Justice. The Crown advises that there were actually three accused. I am told the victim was stabbed approximately 60 times, but most injuries were superficial. One, though, caused a collapsed lung that could have been life threatening. One of the accused pleaded guilty and received 4 years. Mr. Thompson and the other accused were convicted following a jury trial. The co-accused was sentenced this morning to 5 years and Mr. Thompson to 5.5 years consecutive.
And that darn other knifing was counted against him;[27] The Crown’s position here is that a fit sentence is in the range of 18-24 months consecutive, but leaves it up to the Court. The Court does not accept that a sentence in that suggested range would be a fit sentence here; not with this offender and in these circumstances, for the reasons earlier identified. In my opinion, to impose such kind of sentence in this case would amount to no more than the issuance of a ‘license’. It would neither sufficiently denounce the crime nor deter the accused or others; thereby falling far short of the objective of maintaining order and protecting all those within the prison walls.
[30] If the Court were to accept the Crown’s suggested range here it could lead to the mistaken belief that because the offence of assault causing bodily harm (ACBH) has a lesser maximum sentence (10 years) than aggravated assault (14 years), sentences for ACBH cannot intrude upon the effective range of aggravated assault. This, of course, is not the case (See: Ruby, Sentencing, 8th ed. at pp. 875-877) The most the difference means for sentencing purposes is that although they are similar type offences, aggravated assault is considered more serious by its very definition (i.e. where the assault “wounds, maims, disfigures or endangers life” (s. 268 (1)), reflected by its higher maximum penalty. Having said that, it is readily apparent that the offence of assault causing bodily harm can also involve wounding, as in the present case. And, the Court has made known the seriousness it views what happened here.
Leading to this;[35] Finally, before imposing sentence I have considered the effect of the sentence this Court is to impose consecutive to the sentence imposed earlier today on Mr. Thompson. In other words, I have considered the “totality principle”, even though this is not a situation where one judge is imposing a series of sentences on a particular offender; but rather a situation, as Crown counsel described, of “back to back” sentence hearings.
So let's work out the math. He has 2.5 years left on his original sentence. He got 5.5 years consecutive for the prior stabbing where he had just been sentenced and 3.5 years consecutive for this stabbing. That comes to 11.5 years left if he does the entire sentencing. Time off for good behaviour seems unlikely. So he'll be out about mid 2029 when he's about 54 years old. This requires the improbable assumption that he doesn't earn yet more time before the current sentencing clock runs out.[37] In my view, against the backdrop of the sentence imposed earlier today and the sentence he is serving at the time of that offence, the sentence to be imposed here does not offend the principle; not with this offender. The principle therefore does not require the Court to scale back what is otherwise a just sentence for this offender and this crime. In any event, for crimes committed within prison walls, as said in R v. Littletent, supra, “no free ride can be tolerated”.
V. IMPOSITION OF SENTENCE
[38] Mr. Thompson, a jury having found you guilty of assault causing bodily harm under Section 267 (b) of the Criminal Code, I sentence you to 3.5 years’ imprisonment, to run consecutively to the time you are serving, including consecutive to the sentence imposed earlier today for aggravated assault.
These newspaper articles adds some colour to the judge's dry comments;
https://www.miramichionline.com/post.php?id=5736
https://www.miramichionline.com/post.php?id=5643
One interesting note is that Thompson refused to plea on the basis that he had sovereign power under S. 39 of the Criminal Code. This was the only defense he put forward. This is S. 39;
Actually I'm not sure what this obscure section means but it clearly didn't stop Terry from getting another nine years.· 39 (1) Every one who is in peaceable possession of personal property under a claim of right, and every one acting under his authority, is protected from criminal responsibility for defending that possession, even against a person entitled by law to possession of it, if he uses no more force than is necessary.
