Court Information and Parties

Court: COURT OF APPEAL FOR ONTARIO Date: 2024-05-08 Docket: COA-24-CR-0268

Judges: Pepall, Thorburn and George JJ.A.

Between: His Majesty the King, Respondent and Adam Leroy, Appellant

Counsel: Adam Leroy, appearing in person Ingrid Grant, appearing as duty counsel Nicholas Hay, for the respondent

Heard and released orally: May 6, 2024

On appeal from: The sentence imposed on February 14, 2024 by Justice Timothy E. Breen of the Ontario Court of Justice.

Reasons for Decision

[1] The appellant pled guilty to assault (choking) and uttering threats to cause death. He received a 164-day concurrent sentence after deduction of 60 days on account of presentence custody.

[2] The appellant seeks leave to appeal his sentence. He is no longer challenging his guilty plea and indeed, on April 12, 2024, he advised the court that he was not raising ineffective assistance of counsel.

[3] Turning to the appellant’s sentence appeal, he submits that the sentence was excessive and that the sentencing judge failed to consider his mental health and drug addiction.

[4] The Crown had sought a sentence of 8 months less credit for presentence custody and the defence sought a sentence of 3 months.

[5] The sentencing judge considered the very serious and pre-meditated nature of the assault that arose out of a failed domestic relationship. He noted the appellant’s related criminal record with convictions for criminal harassment in 2006, assault in 2008 and 2009, and assault and threatening in 2017. He considered the Crown’s position in the circumstances to be extraordinarily generous. The convictions involved intimate partner violence and threats of death. The sentencing judge noted that the appellant had drug issues and, in particular, identified substance abuse as an area of concern.

[6] The sentencing judge did not specifically address any mental health issue but the submissions on this issue were very brief and focused on the unfortunate passing of the appellant’s mother and that the appellant was not on medication for depression and anxiety at the time of the offences. The submissions were not focused on mitigating the appellant’s sentence and the sentencing judge was not obliged to address every factual submission.

[7] An appellate court may intervene to vary a sentence if it is demonstrably unfit or where there has been an error in principle, a failure to consider a relevant factor, or the erroneous consideration of an aggravating or mitigating factor that had an impact on the sentence: R. v. Lacasse, 2015 SCC 64, [2015] 3 S.C.R. 1089. No such errors are present here and the sentence was certainly not demonstrably unfit.

[8] For these reasons, leave to appeal sentence is granted but the appeal is dismissed.

“S.E. Pepall J.A.” “Thorburn J.A.” “J. George J.A.”