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Criminal - Sentencing 'Range'. R. v. Thomas
In R. v. Thomas (Ont CA, 2025) the Ontario Court of Appeal comments on sentencing ranges:[4] First, so long as the sentence imposed is fit, a judge does not err by exceeding an established sentencing range, since “sentencing ranges are primarily guidelines, and not hard and fast rules”: R. v. Lacasse, 2015 SCC 64, [2015] 3 S.C.R. 64, at para. 60. The sentence the trial judge imposed is no doubt harsh, but it is not unfit. The trial judge’s decision to impose this sentence reflects the priority that the law requires judges to give to deterrence and denunciation for sexual assault offences. It also heeds the call made by Fairburn A.C.J.O. to judges in R. v. A.J.K., 2022 ONCA 487, 162 O.R. (3d) 721, at para. 72, quoting R. v. Friesen, 2020 SCC 9, [2020] 1 S.C.R. 424, at para. 35, to “chart a new course and bring sentencing ranges into ‘harmony with a new societal understanding of the gravity of certain offences or the degree of responsibility of certain offenders’”. . R. v. Stephens
In R. v. Stephens (Ont CA, 2024) the Ontario Court of Appeal comments usefully of the concept of 'sentencing range':[15] Relying on the authorities, the trial judge posited that the range for recidivist firearms offenders was from 6 to 10 years. He referred to the decision of Code J. in R. v. Graham, 2018 ONSC 6817. The appellant says this reflects error. The trial judge did not have the benefit of the more recent decision of this court in R. v. Morris, 2023 ONCA 816, in which Roberts J.A. noted the range to be between 4 and 9 years. The appellant argues that, by referring to an erroneous range of penalty, the trial judge committed an error in principle which commands appellate review.
[16] We begin by noting that a range of sentence is not an inflexible construct. It is designed to offer some measure of fit but is not a straitjacket. In R. v. Parranto, 2021 SCC 46, [2021] 3 S.C.R. 366, the majority of the Supreme Court of Canada observed, at para. 30, that:Unless a sentence is demonstrably unfit or the sentencing judge made an error in principle that impacts the sentence, an appellate court must not vary the sentence on appeal (paras. 11 and 67). The focus of the demonstrable unfitness inquiry is on whether the sentence is proportionate, not whether the sentencing judge applied the correct starting point, sentencing range or category within a range (Lacasse, at paras. 51 and 53; Friesen, at para. 162).
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