Four men, each convicted of at least two first-degree murder charges, won the right to apply for parole earlier than their initial sentences.
Edward Downey, Joshua Frank, Jason Klaus and Derek Sarecki were allowed to appeal their sentences in decisions made at the Alberta Court of Appeal in Calgary on Friday.
Last week, the Supreme Court of Canada returned the cases of Frank and Klaus to the Alberta Court of Appeal.
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The move followed a unanimous ruling by Canada’s Supreme Court last month in the case of Alexander Bisonet, who shot dead six people at a mosque in Quebec in 2017.
The Supreme Court ruled that Bisonette could seek parole after 25 years instead of having to wait 40 years, as determined by the judge in the original trial.
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The court called for a provision in the Penal Code that meant that many murderers may have to wait 50 years or more to apply for parole, humiliating and incompatible with human dignity, and overturned it.
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Balfour Der, Sarecki’s lawyer, told Global News that in his client’s case, Friday’s decision meant that the period of inadmissible release had been reduced from 75 to 25 years.
“There were three first-degree murder charges,” Der said. “Everyone had 25 years of parole.
“The judge made them run consistently, but due to recent changes in the law, this part of it was unconstitutional – to make consecutive periods of parole.
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Der said his client’s complaint did not require a physical hearing on Friday because “the sentence had to be reduced.”
Der noted that he believed it was a cruel and unusual punishment to “make someone spend so long without being eligible for parole.”
“How do we know what someone will be like in 25 years, 30 or 50 years?” In trying to predict the future today, I thought it was unfair because people can change and we should never take all hope away from people – even those who have committed the most heinous crimes – because it is part of our Canadian fabric that we always hope that someone can be rehabilitated. “
Sarecki has been convicted on three counts of first-degree murder in connection with the 2015 murders of Terry Blanchett, his young daughter Hailey Dunbar-Blanchett and Hanne Meketek in Blairmore, Alta.
Frank and Klaus were convicted on three counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of Klaus’ father, sister and mother in 2013 in central Alberta.
Downey was convicted on two counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of Sarah Bailey and her five-year-old daughter Talia Marsman in 2016.
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In 2011, the federal government passed legislation that allowed judges to order killers to serve successive periods of parole for each crime if they killed more than one person.
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– With files from Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press
© 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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