Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 912
what would you do if you were the judge?
9/12/2007 at 9:13 PM
A Winnipeg judge has reserved his decision for six more weeks on the sentence for Derek Harveymordenzenk, a former city police officer who killed a woman in a 2005 car crash.
In a deal with prosecutors, Harveymordenzenk — also known as Derek Harvey-Zenk — pleaded guilty in July to a single charge of dangerous driving causing death.
Crystal Ann Taman, a 40-year-old mother of three, was killed when Harveymordenzenk's pickup truck struck her convertible, which police said was stopped at a traffic light at the corner of Highway 59 and the Perimeter Highway, on the outskirts of Winnipeg.
Chief provincial court Judge Raymond Wyant told the court Wednesday he is considering departing from a joint recommendation made by the defence and the Crown for a conditional sentence of two years less a day, which would not require Harveymordenzenk to spend any time in jail.
Wyant is also considering whether police officers should be held to a higher standard than the general public for their actions, he said.
Wyant questioned both special prosecutor Marty Minuk and defence counsel Richard Wolson at Wednesday's proceedings, asking whether there was any evidence about whether Harveymordenzenk had been drinking alcohol before the crash.
Continue Article
None was offered.
Harveymordenzenk was initially charged with refusing a breathalyzer, impaired driving causing death and criminal negligence causing death, but those charges were dropped without explanation when Harveymordenzenk pleaded guilty to dangerous driving.
In court Wednesday, prosecutor Minuk acknowledged that the investigation of the crash by the police force in East St. Paul, a Winnipeg suburb, was "not satisfactory."
The force is now under provincial review over the accident investigation and several other incidents that have called into question how the department is being run.
The legal wrangling around the case has outraged the victim's family.
"When you see people working in the justice system, in the police force, and they treat it with triviality like this, treat it like garbage, it sickens me," said Sveinn Sveinson, Taman's father.
"To lose my daughter to something like this, and there isn't even an offer of any justice — I want to throw up."
Wyant will hand down his ruling Oct. 29.