B.C. killer says judge erred in blaming him for second slaying
Credit to Author: Kim Bolan| Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2019 00:46:57 +0000
A lawyer for a man convicted of first-degree murder says a B.C. Supreme Court judge mistakenly blamed his client for a second slaying in rejecting his bid for a faint hope hearing last year.
And Brent Anderson argued before the B.C. Court of Appeal Friday that because of the “error in law,” killer Robbie Soomel should have his application for the hearing before a jury reconsidered.
In December 2018, Justice George Macintosh ruled against the special hearing for Soomel saying that there was no “reasonable prospect” that a jury would vote unanimously to lower Soomel’s parole ineligibility period because of his violent history.
“I do not believe a jury voting unanimously could get past the fact that Mr. Soomel killed two times, once in the first degree murder he orchestrated, and the other in the conspiracy to gun down a man in front of his girlfriend,” Macintosh said.
Soomel was convicted of the first-degree murder of friend-turned-drug trade rival Gurpreet Sohi, who was shot to death in a Delta basement suite in September 2000. And he pleaded guilty in 2010 to conspiracy to commit murder for assisting with the contracted killing of Jason Herle in Abbotsford in 1997.
Soomel was not convicted of killing “two times” as Macintosh said, Anderson told Justices Lauri Ann Fenlon, Peter Willcock and Gregory Fitch.
He said that Macintosh adopted the position of Crown at last year’s hearing. who repeatedly blamed Soomel for two murders, when he was only convicted of one.
“The reason why he got it wrong is because the Crown vociferously and repeatedly urged the trial judge to draw the wrong legal inference from that fact,” Anderson said. “And unfortunately the screening judge adopted that argument in my submission.”
The faint-hope clause allows murderers who killed before December 2011 to apply for a chance at early parole after serving 15 years of their sentence. The clause has been eliminated for those who killed after the 2011 cut-off date.
In a two-step process, a judge orders a faint-hope hearing before a jury only if he or she believes that jury would rule unanimously to reduce the parole ineligibility period. Soomel is eligible for full parole in October 2025 but is hoping to get his ineligibility period reduced.
Prosecutor Lesley Ruzicka argued Friday that Macintosh made no error when he ruled against Soomel’s application.
She said the judge clearly referenced the two distinct convictions — one for murder and one for conspiracy — involving two victims. And she said that Macintosh weighed all the factors in Soomel’s history, included his poor behaviour inside federal prison during the first decade of his sentence.
“I submit that there is no error. But even if this court were to find error, I submit that it has no impact on the screening judge’s ultimate conclusion that when he balanced the totality of the factors, even though the appellant had made what he described as commendable marked improvements, it wasn’t enough in these circumstances to tip the balance,” she said.
Anderson noted again Friday that Soomel gained insight into the pain he caused his victim’s family after his own brother Raj was killed in 2009 while living in a Vancouver halfway house.
At the time, Raj Soomel had received day parole after pleading guilty to the attempted murder of a man who testified against his younger brother and also provided police with evidence that Robbie Soomel had been involved in the 1998 slaying of journalist Tara Singh Hayer.
Hayer had agreed to testify for the Crown in the Air India terrorism case when he was shot to death. His murder remains unsolved.
Two men linked to the United Nations gang were convicted in 2016 of murdering the elder Soomel, who they had mistaken for Independent Soldiers gangster Randy Naicker. Naicker was living at the same halfway house at the time. He was shot to death in 2012.
The Appeal Court justices reserved their decision.