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The youth who was convicted of murdering 16-year-old Jannai Dopwell-Bailey received a six-year sentence, including three years in custody, at Montreal’s youth courthouse on Monday.
Superior Court Justice Annie Émond said she was shown evidence the youth — who was 16 when he and an adult named Andrei Donet, now 21, killed the teen outside his school in Côte-des-Neiges on Oct. 18, 2021 — has made a lot of progress while serving 35 months in custody since his arrest. During that time, the youth completed high school and took part in rehabilitation programs.
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“He has been a role model for the other youths in his unit (at a youth detention centre). It would be unfair to ignore those efforts and sentence X to the maximum penalty and not give him any credit for his time spent in pre-sentence custody. It would be unduly punitive and would wrongly prioritize specific denunciation over X’s rehabilitation and reintegration into society,” the judge said.
The judge referred to the youth as X during the hearing because of a standard publication ban intended to protect his identity, as called for in the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
Émond rejected a request from the Crown that the youth receive the maximum sentence called for in the act for a second-degree murder conviction: a seven-year sentence with four to be served in custody and the rest with the offender subject to surveillance conditions in the community.
“The punishment doesn’t fit the crime,” Charla Dopwell, the victim’s mother, told reporters after the sentence was delivered. “If it was the other way around, like where two Black boys did this to a white person, I don’t think that would be the outcome and I must say Black lives matter. Jannai’s life mattered.
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“I’m the one being punished for all of this.”
The judge cited the youth’s age, lack of a previous criminal record and “the impact of his overall IQ and mental health disorders” as some of the reasons behind her decision. She also noted that the youth expressed remorse when he read a letter to the victim’s family during sentence arguments in a recent hearing.
An aggravating factor that contributed to the sentence, the judge said, involved how X and Donet made a video mocking the victim shortly after he was pepper-sprayed, assaulted and stabbed outside the door to his school on Van Horne Ave. The youth held a knife in the video, which was posted on social media, while he and Donet danced. The judge also noted that the video was X’s idea.
The youth was also credited 12 months of the 35 he spent in custody against his sentence sentence. That means he has five years left to serve, including two years in custody.
“The additional two years of custody reflects the seriousness of the offence and provides X the opportunity to remain committed to the path of recovery to full rehabilitation,” Émond said. “Subsequently, a significant portion of the sentence, three years, will be spent under conditional supervision in the community subject to conditions that will help X stay on track and continue to take the rehabilitative steps he has already begun.”
Donet was convicted of second-degree murder earlier this year in adult court and he automatically received a life sentence. He is required to serve 13 years behind bars before he becomes eligible for full parole.
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