The teenager guilty of murdering four people and injuring seven others in La Loche, Sask., is expected to appear in a courtroom on Tuesday as lawyers begin to argue if he should be sentenced as a young offender or an adult.
The distinction could mean significantly less time in custody, as adult first- and second-degree murder convictions carry life imprisonment sentences, while a youth can be sentenced to a maximum of 10 years for the offence.
READ MORE: La Loche school shooting victim wants adult sentence for teen who killed 4, wounded 7
A youth sentenced as an adult will still receive a reduced parole ineligibility period.
“The big significant difference between adult and youth sentences is the mandatory life imprisonment is not there for a young person,” defence lawyer Brian Pfefferle said in an interview in Saskatoon on Monday.
The person at the centre of January 2016’s La Loche shootings was 17 years old at the time. Pfefferle said, in these cases, the Crown usually focuses on a number of factors when arguing that a youth be sentenced as an adult.
“They’ll try to focus on the serious violence, the seriousness of the act, the mental maturity of the young person, whether that young person was living self-sufficiently,” he said.
READ MORE: The untold stories of the La Loche, Sask. school shooting
Pfefferle added that third-party experts usually assist the courts through pre-sentencing and psychological reports in an effort to determine the most appropriate sentence possible.
“We have to balance, as a society, the interest of punishing young people for very serious acts and also making sure those young people don’t become more prone to criminal acts in the future.”
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The court proceedings in Meadow Lake, Sask., are expected to take place throughout the week and continue in June.
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