Background
On July 15, 2020, nineteen-year-old Cadence Beauparlant brought a loaded handgun to a small house party at a friend’s home. The firearm was passed around among guests who were drinking and using drugs. In the early morning hours, the gun discharged while Beauparlant’s friend Devante Skye-Davis was handling it, striking 17-year-old Myah Larmond in the head. Ms. Larmond died in hospital later that morning. Rather than remaining to render assistance, Beauparlant fled the scene; the gun was never recovered. He was not arrested for the firearm offence until more than a year later.
While awaiting resolution of the firearm charge, Beauparlant was convicted of multiple drug offences and received two separate custodial sentences. He had been jointly charged with manslaughter alongside Mr. Skye-Davis, but that charge was withdrawn when he pleaded guilty to one count of possessing a loaded prohibited or restricted firearm without authorization or a licence.
At the February 2024 sentencing hearing, the Crown sought five years’ imprisonment, consecutive to the sentences already being served. The defence sought 18 months to two years. The sentencing judge of the Superior Court imposed seven years’ imprisonment, consecutive to the existing sentences — two years above the Crown’s position — relying on what he described as a five-to-seven-year sentencing range drawn from R. v. Tabnor, 2021 ONSC 8548.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeal granted leave to appeal and allowed the sentence appeal, reducing the sentence from seven years to five years’ imprisonment, consecutive to any sentences being served. The court held that the sentencing judge committed errors in principle that warranted appellate intervention under the framework set out by the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Nahanee, 2022 SCC 37. Specifically, the sentencing judge failed to give the parties notice that he planned to exceed the Crown’s sentencing position, and his reasons for imposing the higher sentence were erroneous.
The court found two distinct errors. First, the sentencing judge misread Tabnor: that decision set a range of four to six years, not five to seven, meaning the seven-year sentence exceeded even the incorrectly stated range. Second, by imposing a sentence at the top of the range — however that range was defined — the sentencing judge gave no meaningful effect to significant mitigating factors: Beauparlant’s guilty plea, his youth, and the fact that he had no prior criminal record when he committed the offence. While the sentencing judge was entitled to find that Beauparlant’s rehabilitative prospects were limited, he could not disregard rehabilitation altogether as a sentencing objective given that Beauparlant was a youthful first offender, in accordance with R. v. Habib, 2024 ONCA 830.
The court made clear that its intervention was not intended to minimize the gravity of the offence. Beauparlant’s reckless act of bringing a loaded firearm to a party and allowing others to handle it caused the death of an innocent young woman — a serious aggravating factor. Nevertheless, the five-year sentence sought by the Crown appropriately balanced those aggravating circumstances against the mitigating factors, and the court substituted that sentence accordingly.
Key Takeaways
- Under Nahanee (2022 SCC 37), a sentencing judge who exceeds the Crown’s sentencing position without first notifying the parties commits an error in principle; appellate intervention is warranted where, among other things, the judge provides erroneous reasons for the harsher sentence.
- Accurately identifying and applying the correct sentencing range is material: misstating the range by even one year at each end can produce an unlawful sentence, particularly when the error compounds other errors such as failing to account for mitigating factors.
- A sentencing judge may find that a youthful first offender has poor rehabilitative prospects, but cannot eliminate rehabilitation as a sentencing objective entirely — youth and lack of prior record demand that some weight be given to rehabilitative potential.
- A guilty plea and youthful-offender status are mitigating factors that must be given concrete effect in the sentence; a sentence at the ceiling of the applicable range with no discount for those factors is erroneous in principle.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the procedural and substantive constraints on sentencing judges who consider departing above the Crown’s position. The Nahanee notice requirement exists to ensure fairness and an adequate record; Beauparlant illustrates how flawed reasoning offered in support of a harsher sentence — here, a misread authority and a failure to account for statutory mitigating factors — will independently justify appellate correction even where the underlying offence is grave.
The case also serves as a practical reminder for Crown and defence counsel about the importance of supplying accurate sentencing-range authorities. The sentencing judge’s reliance on an incorrect reading of Tabnor went unchallenged at first instance, yet it anchored the entire sentencing analysis at too high a level. For practitioners appearing on firearms offences in Ontario involving tragic outcomes, Beauparlant confirms that the four-to-six-year range from Tabnor remains a live reference point, subject to adjustment for the full suite of aggravating and mitigating circumstances.