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Story summary
- Canada’s Supreme Court upheld a three-year term for Mi’kmaq man Harry Arthur Cope, reduced from five years.
- Justice Michelle O’Bonsawin wrote the majority, linking Indigenous overincarceration to violence against Indigenous women.
- The Court introduced a three-step sentencing framework: gravity, denunciation, and community-based alternatives.
- Four dissenting justices urged reinstating the five-year sentence, criticizing the majority’s reduction.
- The majority said the trial judge ignored Cope’s severe mental-health issues and sentencing-circle advice.
