An Ontario Court House is shown in London, May 7, 2012. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Dave Chidley
July 06, 2012 - 6:10 PM
OTTAWA - An Ontario Court judge has struck down a central tenet of the Harper government's tough-on-crime agenda.
Justice Paul Bellefontaine ruled Friday that Christopher Lewis — a crack dealer who offered to sell an undercover police officer a gun — should not have to face the mandatory minimum sentence of three years in jail for firearms trafficking.
Mandatory minimum sentences are the backbone of the Conservative reforms to criminal law.
But Lewis's lawyer, Jeffrey Mazin, says three years was way too much for someone who never had a gun and never intended to sell one to the officer.
He says the judge agreed that the mandatory minimum sentence in this case was too harsh and would run up against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms provisions against cruel and unusual punishment.
News from © The Canadian Press, 2012