CITATION: R. v. Jarvis, 2017 ONSC 6405
COURT FILE NO.: G339/16
DATE: 20171026
ONTARIO
SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE
BETWEEN:
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN
– and –
ROBERT JARVIS
Defendant
Mr. R. Davidson, for the Crown
Mr. R. Gemmill, for the Defendant
HEARD: August 10 and September 21, 2017
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
Regional Senior Justice Fuerst
Introduction
[1] After she failed to turn up for a regular appointment, Jennifer Platt was found murdered in her Lindsay home in March 2016. Robert Jarvis, a local unemployed drug addict whom Ms. Platt had befriended, soon became the subject of police attention.
[2] Mr. Jarvis was charged with the first degree murder of Ms. Platt. He pleaded guilty to the included offence of second degree murder.
[3] The issue to be determined is the period of time that Mr. Jarvis must serve in jail before becoming eligible for parole.
The Principles Governing the Parole Ineligibility Determination
[4] Section 745(c) of the Criminal Code provides that on conviction for second degree murder, the offender must be sentenced to life imprisonment, with no eligibility for parole for a fixed period ranging from a minimum of ten to a maximum of twenty-five years. Section 745.4 specifically empowers the sentencing judge to increase the parole ineligibility period from the minimum of ten years to the period that the judge deems fit, up to the maximum of twenty-five years.
[5] In exercising his or her discretion under s. 745.4, the sentencing judge must have regard to the character of the offender, the nature of the offence and the circumstances surrounding its commission, and the recommendation of the jury, if any.
[6] As Mr. Jarvis pleaded guilty, there is no jury recommendation to be considered in this case.
[7] As a general rule, the period of parole ineligibility shall be for ten years, but this can be ousted by the sentencing judge’s determination that, according to the criteria set out in s. 745.4, the offender should wait a longer period before having his suitability for release assessed. The determination of the parole ineligibility period is “a very fact-sensitive process”: R. v. Shropshire, 1995 CanLII 47 (SCC), [1995] 4 S.C.R. 227, at para. 18. The sliding scale of parole ineligibility reflects the fact that “within second degree murder there is both a range of seriousness and varying degrees of moral culpability”: Shropshire, at para. 31.
[8] An increased parole ineligibility period does not require unusual circumstances: see Shropshire, at paras. 26 to 27.
[9] In R. v. McKnight (1999), 1999 CanLII 3717 (ON CA), 135 C.C.C (3d) 41, the Court of Appeal for Ontario held that in assessing the s. 745.4 criteria and in deciding whether to increase the period of parole ineligibility, all of the objectives of sentencing are relevant. Those objectives, as set out in s. 718, are denunciation of unlawful conduct and the harm caused to victims or to the community, deterrence both general and specific, the separation of offenders from society where necessary, rehabilitation, reparation for harm done to the victim or to the community, and promotion of a sense of responsibility in offenders and acknowledgement of the harm done to victims or to the community. The court, however, observed in McKnight that the statutory ten year minimum ineligibility period limits the weight that can be accorded to the offender’s prospects of rehabilitation.
[10] Regardless of the period of parole ineligibility imposed, the sentence remains one of life imprisonment. The sentencing judge does not decide when the offender should be paroled, but merely the period he must serve before parole can even be considered: see R. v. Trudeau (1987), 24 O.A.C. 376 (C.A.).
The Nature of the Offence and the Circumstances Surrounding Its Commission
[11] In the fall of 2015, Jennifer Platt was 62 years old. She was widowed, and lived alone in a modest house in Lindsay. She was small in stature, and slight of build. She was hearing impaired.
[12] Although she had worked for many years with the federal government, by 2015 Ms. Platt had few sources of income. She supported herself by walking dogs, cleaning houses, and selling Mary Kay products.
[13] She was known as a kind, generous and extremely trusting person. Friends felt that she was always being taken advantage of, because she was so giving.
[14] Robert Jarvis was 48 years old in the fall of 2015. He was much larger than Ms. Platt, at 5 feet 11 inches tall and over 200 pounds. In contrast to her, he was unemployed and had a transient lifestyle.
[15] Mr. Jarvis needed money to care for his elderly father, and also to feed his own addiction to narcotics, which he regularly bought on the street. He obtained money by knocking on doors in residential neighbourhoods and offering to do odd jobs for money, and by asking home and business owners in Lindsay for food or money.
[16] Ms. Platt and Mr. Jarvis met in December 2015, while each was out walking in her neighbourhood. He offered to do some work around her house. Ms. Platt needed work done on her basement. He told her that he was a plumber and could help her. She gave him $100 for materials and labour, but he did no work for her.
[17] Subsequently, he borrowed money from her repeatedly, offering her various explanations as to why he needed it. At times, Ms. Platt borrowed money, including from Money Mart, and gave it to Mr. Jarvis.
[18] Ms. Platt kept records of her loans to Mr. Jarvis. From December 2015 to March 2016, she loaned him almost $3000.
[19] Text messages showed that in March 2016, Ms. Platt repeatedly asked Mr. Jarvis to repay the money he owed her, and he repeatedly promised to do so. On some occasions, Mr. Jarvis texted Ms. Platt posing as third parties named “Mike” and “Rita”, who said that they would come to her house to repay her the money she had loaned Mr. Jarvis. These were empty promises. Neither Mr. Jarvis nor anyone else ever brought Ms. Platt any money. Instead, Mr. Jarvis made various excuses for his failure to repay her.
[20] Even as she noted on a desk calendar that Mr. Jarvis was giving her the “run around”, Ms. Platt borrowed more money and loaned it to him, on March 8 and 11, 2016.
[21] On March 18, 2016, Ms. Platt went with Mr. Jarvis to a house where she had cleaned for several years. While Mr. Jarvis waited in the car, Ms. Platt asked the homeowners for a $40 advance on her weekly cleaning fee. They gave her the money. She then gave it to Mr. Jarvis, and drove him downtown. When she returned to the house to clean it, she told the owners about the large amount of money she had loaned Mr. Jarvis. She said that she was going to ask him for all her money, and did not want anything to do with him after that. The homeowners urged her to get her money and then never deal with Mr. Jarvis again.
[22] On the morning of March 19, 2016, Mr. Jarvis went to Ms. Platt’s house, to talk about the debt he owed her. He gave her no prior notice that he was coming to see her. He did not have any money to pay her.
[23] Ms. Platt and Mr. Jarvis sat and had coffee together. Mr. Jarvis told her that he did not have any money for her. She became upset. They argued. She moved towards the hallway with her cell phone. Mr. Jarvis grabbed her, and started choking her with his forearm pressed on and around her neck. She gasped for air and fell to the ground onto her back. She was incapacitated by the choking.
[24] Mr. Jarvis retrieved a large serrated knife from the kitchen. He got on top of Ms. Platt, and slashed her throat with the knife, causing a large incised wound to her neck. There was no damage to the turtleneck she was wearing, indicating that Mr. Jarvis pulled it down with one hand and slashed her throat with the other.
[25] Mr. Jarvis then cleaned the knife by placing it under running water from the kitchen faucet. He left it in the sink.
[26] He removed some of Ms. Platt’s jewellery, including rings. He locked the house. He went into the garage and drove out in Ms. Platt’s car, closing the garage door behind him.
[27] Mr. Jarvis drove to downtown Lindsay, where he parked the car. He went to a pawn shop, but left when he was not served after a time. He went to a second pawn shop, where he pawned Ms. Platt’s jewellery for $350. He then walked to his apartment building, leaving the car where he had parked it.
[28] Ms. Platt became the subject of a missing person’s investigation when she did not show up to walk a dog for a client on March 21.
[29] Mr. Jarvis was contacted by the police that day. He said that he last saw Ms. Platt on March 19 when he gave her some money that he owed her, and that he had no idea where she could be. He was contacted again on March 23. He told the police that he had no concerns for Ms. Platt’s safety, that when he last saw her on March 19 they had coffee and he gave her some of the money he owed her, that he grabbed an apple and cut it up and took off, and that a guy had come to her door who said that he was a builder about a crack in her foundation. When asked if he had any idea where Ms. Platt might be, Mr. Jarvis said that she said she had to go to Oshawa on March 19, that she said she was going to call when she came back, but that he had not heard from her and he was going to give her a call the next day.
[30] The police went to Ms. Platt’s house on March 21, but it was locked. They could not see into the garage. They saw nothing unusual. Police officers re-attended at the home the next morning. They forced their way into the house. They found Ms. Platt’s body on the floor in the hallway.
[31] Later that morning, the police found Ms. Platt’s car where Mr. Jarvis left it on March 19.
[32] Mr. Jarvis was arrested on March 24, 2016.
[33] The forensic pathologist who performed the post mortem examination concluded that the cause of Ms. Platt’s death was “an incised wound of the throat of a woman with neck compression”. Ms. Platt was alive when she suffered the neck compression through strangulation, and when she suffered the incised wound.
[34] The neck compression could have been caused by Ms. Platt being choked with a forearm around her neck. There were signs that the neck compression involved sustained pressure to the neck for a period of time. This could have rendered Ms. Platt unconscious in seconds, due to the blocking of oxygen to the brain. Enough force was used to cause fractures of the cartilages in the neck at three different locations.
[35] The incised wound was gaping, nearly horizontal, and 13.8 centimetres in length. Ms. Platt could have been unconscious when her throat was slashed. Blood from the wound would have been taken into her airways, interfering with the functioning of her lungs and resulting in a loss of oxygen to her brain.
[36] Ms. Platt suffered blunt force injuries to the back and to the front of her body. The injuries to the back of her body could have been caused by her falling to the ground onto her back. The injuries to the front of her body could have been caused when Mr. Jarvis was on top of her. She also suffered blunt force injuries to her head and face. The trauma that resulted in those injuries could have rendered her unconscious. She was alive when she suffered the blunt force injuries to the back and front of her body and to her head and face.
[37] Ms. Platt had no defensive injuries.
The Victim Impact Information
[38] Victim Impact Statements were provided by Ms. Platt’s siblings and friends. They consistently described her as kind, caring, compassionate, dependable, hardworking, and a true friend. She looked in on neighbours, visited friends who were ill and in need of assistance, and worked with church groups to help the less fortunate in the community. Her friends have been unable to rationalize her death.
[39] Ms. Platt’s siblings have been particularly affected by her murder. Her sister feels “an emptiness every day that will never be filled again”. One brother described her loss as the loss of the family’s “trusted repository of memory and keepsakes”. Another has experienced anxiety and depression that caused him to leave his job. The circumstances of her death haunt them all.
The Character of Mr. Jarvis
[40] Mr. Jarvis is now 50 years old. He has a prior criminal record for property offences, consisting of theft under in 1995, and fraud and theft of credit card in 2012.
[41] Mr. Jarvis grew up in Toronto and Kawartha Lakes. After finishing high school, he studied briefly at community colleges, and eventually obtained his plumber’s certificate.
[42] In 1993 he was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident. He was unable to walk for almost a year. He was prescribed opiates, and became addicted to them. He bought and used opiates of all kind, including heroin. Ultimately, he was unable to hold steady employment. By the time of his arrest for the murder, he supported his addiction by begging.
[43] Mr. Jarvis’s mother died in 1995. About two years later his father had a stroke, and was left physically and mentally disabled. Mr. Jarvis lived with his father in the family home until it was foreclosed on in 2010. He and his father sometimes lived in apartments, and were sporadically homeless, staying at homeless shelters.
[44] In court, Mr. Jarvis expressed remorse, and acknowledged that he took advantage of a kind and giving person.
The Positions of the Parties
[45] Crown and defence counsel jointly submit that a parole ineligibility period of seventeen to twenty years should be imposed.
[46] On behalf of the Crown, Mr. Davidson seeks a parole ineligibility period of twenty years. While he concedes the mitigating aspects, including Mr. Jarvis’s guilty plea and lack of a criminal record for crimes of violence, he submits that this case involves a unique combination of aggravating factors. It was a cold-blooded brutal killing. There were elements of both planning and deliberation, and also of domination of the victim. Mr. Jarvis slashed Ms. Platt’s neck while she was incapacitated from being choked. It was a gross breach of trust that she was killed in her own home, by a man to whom she had offered generosity and caring. Mr. Jarvis callously left her dead, and took her car to go pawn her jewellery. He tried to conceal his involvement in the murder, including by cleaning the knife, locking the house, and lying to the police. Ms. Platt’s death has had a devastating impact on her family and friends.
[47] Mr. Davidson also seeks a DNA order, a s. 109 order, and a non-communication order.
[48] On behalf of Mr. Jarvis, Mr. Gemmill seeks a parole ineligibility period of seventeen years. He acknowledges the seriousness of the offence, but takes issue with some of the factors that Crown counsel suggests are aggravating. Mr. Jarvis did not take a weapon to the house. The killing occurred after he and Ms. Platt argued, and not as a planned and deliberate murder. There are significant mitigating factors. Most importantly, Mr. Jarvis pleaded guilty. This saved some ten weeks of court time, and spared Ms. Platt’s family and friends the ordeal of a trial. It is a sign of Mr. Jarvis’s remorse, and a first step toward rehabilitation. The preliminary inquiry was conducted in a focused manner, and committal on second degree murder was conceded. Mr. Jarvis has only a minor prior criminal record, with no history of violence.
[49] Mr. Gemmill does not oppose the ancillary orders requested by Crown counsel.
Analysis
[50] In R. v. Anthony-Cook, 2016 SCC 43, at para. 42, the Supreme Court of Canada held that trial judges should reject joint submissions as to sentence only where the proposed sentence “would be viewed by reasonable and informed persons as a breakdown in the proper functioning of the justice system.”
[51] The facts of Ms. Platt’s murder are very serious, and reflect a high degree of moral culpability on the part of Mr. Jarvis. I am satisfied that the range of parole ineligibility of seventeen to twenty years jointly suggested by Crown and defence counsel meets the objectives of sentencing set out in the Criminal Code, and recognizes the gravity of this murder and the degree of Mr. Jarvis’s moral blameworthiness.
[52] In determining the precise parole ineligibility period that is appropriate, it is relevant that this was a particularly brutal killing. Mr. Jarvis forcefully choked Ms. Platt to the point of incapacitation. He then went and retrieved a knife from the kitchen, got on top of her as she lay on the floor on her back, pulled her turtleneck down to expose her neck, and slashed her throat. His actions were deliberate, and devoid of any measure of empathy for her.
[53] There are additional, significant aggravating factors. They include:
Ms. Platt befriended Mr. Jarvis, and become his benefactor. She was generous with him to her own financial detriment. She showed him only kindness. Even as he sent her transparently false text messages and tried to deceive her about his ability to repay her, she responded, “You are in my prayers, Rob. Take care.”
Ms. Platt was killed in her own home, the one place where she was entitled to be safe from harm.
The fact that Ms. Platt allowed Mr. Jarvis into her home after he showed up uninvited indicates that she trusted him to be alone with her. He breached that trust in the most egregious fashion, taking her life mere minutes after she hospitably shared coffee with him.
Ms. Platt was vulnerable to Mr. Jarvis, given the discrepancy in their physical stature and build, the fact that she was unarmed, and the lack of any defensive injuries to her, which indicates that she was taken by surprise and unable to defend herself from attack.
Mr. Jarvis’s conduct after the killing was cold and callous. He took the time to try to clean the knife. He removed some of Ms. Platt’s jewellery. He locked up the house, and closed the garage door behind him, so that all appeared as normal. He drove off in her car as she lay dead or dying in the hallway. He went directly to local pawn shops and pawned her jewellery for cash.
Mr. Jarvis lied to the police when they contacted him, and tried to deflect suspicion from himself.
On the evidence before me, Mr. Jarvis has a long-standing drug addiction, which he has failed to address. That addiction played a large role in this most violent of offences.
Ms. Platt’s murder has had a profound impact on her siblings, and on those who were her friends. The community at large lost a hardworking, compassionate, and valued member.
[54] Mr. Davidson suggested that it is an aggravating factor that there was no motive for Ms. Platt’s murder. I am unable to agree with that submission. I do not suggest that this was a planned and deliberate murder, but it is a reasonable inference, and one that I draw, that Mr. Jarvis was motivated by the realization that the financial tap he had milked was about to be turned off. This too is an aggravating factor.
[55] There are mitigating factors that I must consider. In particular,
While Mr. Jarvis’s lifestyle was neither stable nor productive, his prior criminal record is relatively minimal and does not include crimes of violence, or suggest a history of violence.
He has never before served a jail sentence.
Even though the Crown’s case against him was strong, it is important that he pleaded guilty. His plea is a sign of remorse and willingness to take responsibility for his actions. It saved court time and resources. It spared Ms. Platt’s family from having to relive her murder at a contested trial, and provides a degree of finality for her family.
Mr. Jarvis expressed remorse to me in court.
[56] Absent these mitigating factors, I would agree with Crown counsel that a parole ineligibility period at or close to the top end of the range jointly suggested should be imposed. In light of these mitigating factors, I conclude that such a period would be excessive.
Conclusion
[57] Mr. Jarvis, please stand. I sentence you to life imprisonment with no eligibility for parole for eighteen years.
[58] I order you to provide bodily fluid samples for DNA analysis. I impose a weapons prohibition order under s. 109(2)(a) for ten years and s. 109(2)(b) for life. While in custody, you are prohibited from contacting the individuals on the list read out by Crown counsel.
[59] The warrant of committal will be endorsed to reflect that Mr. Jarvis’s life sentence began to run on March 24, 2016.
Fuerst RSJ.
Released: October 26, 2017
NOTE: As noted in court, on the record, this decision in writing is to be considered the official version of the Reasons for Sentence and takes precedence over the oral reasons read into the record.