KELOWNA – A marijuana grower was unsuccessful Thursday in his challenge to the constitutionality of mandatory minimum prison sentences for pot growers.
Shem Hanna was busted with almost 1400 plants in February 2013, meaning he was facing at least two years imprisonment under Criminal Code changes enacted three months earlier.
Hanna’s lawyer argued the mandatory minimum sentence is so grossly disproportionate to the sentence Hanna would have received prior to the legislative changes, that society would consider the punishment abhorrent and intolerable, and it would therefore violate charter provisions against cruel and unusual punishment.
But B.C. Supreme Court justice Alison Beames ruled otherwise, saying “I am simply not able to conclude that a sentence of two years would be grossly disproportionate, or that a sentence of two years is so excessive, as to outrage standards of decency.”
Facing a maximum sentence of 14 years imprisonment, Hanna was handed a two year term.
“Mr. Hanna realized this was not going to be an easy argument to make and he was quite prepared for what he received today,” said defence lawyer Glenn Verdurmen.
Hanna, who has no previous criminal record, will be eligible for day parole in six months.
The minimum estimate of the value of the marijuana crop was $253,000.
As caretaker of the indoor grow-op, working for someone else, Hanna expected to get 10 percent of the harvest.
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