Arguments were heard in North Battleford Provincial Court Wednesday morning regarding a youth charged in connection to a Sept. 1 shooting in the city.
The youth, who cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, had entered guilty pleas to accessory after the fact to an aggravated assault, a breach of probation charge and to unauthorized possession of a firearm (a sawed-off rifle).
It will be next week when a decision is rendered on sentence in this case. Judge Lloyd Deshaye has reserved his decision to Nov. 12.
The accused was one of three individuals, along with Valen Nicotine and Justin Fineday, charged in connection to a shooting in the vicinity of Diefenbaker Drive and St. Laurent Dr. during the morning of Sept. 1.
A preliminary hearing for Fineday has been set for April 14 while Nicotine's case returns to provincial court Dec. 23.
According to the facts outlined in court by the Crown, it is alleged Fineday pulled out a 22-calibre sawed-off rifle and opened fire on the victim, who had been walking from one house party to another on the street at the time of the incident. It is believed only one bullet hit the victim.
According to the victim impact statement outlined in court, the shooting victim suffered a puncture wound as well as a collapsed lung and may still require surgery.
The Crown's submission alleged Fineday gave the rifle used in the shooting to Valen Nicotine, who then instructed the accused youth to get rid of the weapon. It was disposed of in a bush in a front yard.
The three were arrested later by police, who recovered the rifle and also the vehicle used by the three during the shooting.
All three accused individuals in this case were alleged in court to be members of the Terror Squad, an aboriginal street gang, at the time of the incident.
Crown prosecutor Jennifer Schmidt told the court it was clear this offence was gang motivated, and added there were aggravating factors where the accused actively took part in the offence by disposing of the firearm.
This was "not a case of a young kid sitting in the car while something horrible happened," Schmidt told Judge Deshaye.
In his submission, defence lawyer Don MacKinnon described his client as having been "extremely intoxicated" and "fogged out" at the time of the offence. It was also acknowledged in court that the accused had been on drugs before the offences were committed.
MacKinnon described his client as "naïve" and said he didn't know the shooting incident was going to happen.
MacKinnon tried to argue for the judge to impose a sentence of "half the maximum" for accessory to aggravated assault in this situation. He called for a period of open custody up to a year. He pointed to the accused having been in secure custody already for two months and called for six months open custody and three months supervision.
That idea did not go over well with Schmidt, whose submission had earlier called for several more months of open custody plus supervision.
She took issue with the characterization of the accused as "naïve," saying the accused had said he had gone into crime in order to get "respect".
Schmidt also noted the whole case had provoked an uproar about crime in North Battleford, with several town hall meetings and confrontations with the mayor on the issue. She called this case among the most serious she'd seen in the seven years she'd been prosecuting here.
The sentence proposed by the defence "doesn't accord with the serious nature of this offence and the community uproar," Schmidt said. She added the overall sentence "must be higher than one year."
Schmidt also said that by allowing the accused out by the summer would "put the community at risk." MacKinnon responded by suggesting adding a probation period that would require the accused to stay with his mother in Edmonton, which would remove him from North Battleford.
