We discussed the trial and conviction in this nasty murder case last spring: Update to a Depressing Headline: 12 Year Old Girl Charged with Murder . Following the conviction, the matter was adjourned for sentencing.
Counsel spoke to sentence today, and the judge has reserved decision until tomorrow: Crown wants maximum 10 years for Medicine Hat girl convicted of murdering family :
MEDICINE HAT, Alta. - A young teenager convicted of murdering her parents and younger brother has several personality disorders and little insight into her condition, a Crown lawyer said Monday in arguing for the maximum 10-year sentence.
But the girl’s lawyer suggested she get a sentence closer to seven years in total, as well as ample credit for the 18 months she has already been behind bars.
Prosecutor Stephanie Cleary told the girl’s sentencing hearing that psychiatric reports show the 14-year-old has both oppositional defiance disorder and conduct disorder.
“It’s clear that this is a young person who’s seriously disturbed and faces significant challenges,” Cleary told Justice Scott Brooker in Court of Queen’s Bench .
“The young person does not recognize that she has committed a crime, nor does she have any insight into her condition.”
Designed as an alternative for seriously violent young offenders, the program would see the girl serve time in a young offender centre, a forensic psychiatric hospital in Edmonton and a group home before she was finally sent back into the community.
If by “Intensive Rehabilitative Custody and Supervision” sentence they mean lock her up in a mental hospital and never let her out into vulnerable society until they can prove without a shadow of a doubt that she will never kill anyone for telling her no again, I say go for it.