MOOSE JAW — Convicted murderer Jeffrey McCaig will spend the next nine years in jail — less remand time — for the killing of Kevin Hallock in 2019, a Court of King’s Bench judge has decided.
The Hon. Madam Justice J.C.L. Dawson announced her decision to sentence McCaig to nearly a decade in prison on Aug. 26. She had already declared McCaig guilty of manslaughter around June, while she received a joint submission about the possible sentence length from the Crown and defence in early August.
“I am satisfied it is appropriate to accept the joint submission of sentence for Mr. McCaig, which is a sentence of nine years, which is equivalent of 3,285 days with credit for pre-trial custody,” the judge said during the late August sentencing. “As such, I find that an appropriate sentence for Mr. McCaig is a period of incarceration of 3,285 days.”
Since McCaig had spent 1,118 days in custody up to the final sentencing day, Dawson agreed to give him enhanced credit of 1.5 days for each day spent in pre-trial custody, resulting in enhanced credit of 1,527 days.
Those days of enhanced credit mean McCaig will have 1,758 days left to serve in jail, or roughly 4.8 years.
Considering the information of the psychiatric reports and the opinion of the doctor who testified at trial, Justice Dawson recommended that those reports be provided to Ministry of Corrections officials so they could review them and use them as part of McCaig’s recovery while in jail.
Dawson also recommended that the ministry consider allowing McCaig to spend a portion of his jail term at the regional psychiatric centre.
As part of her decision, the justice decided that, under section 109 of the Criminal Code, McCaig is prohibited for life from possessing any firearms, prohibited weapons, restricted firearms, crossbow, restricted weapon, ammunition or explosive substance.
Since manslaughter is a primary designated offence related to section 487.04 (a)(2) of the Criminal Code, Dawson authorized samples of bodily substances to be taken from McCaig for forensic DNA analysis.
“Having regard to Mr. McCaig’s period of pre-trial custody, his mental health state and the length of the sentence,” Dawson added, “I decline to order any victim surcharge.”
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