Not quite four years after being released from custody for causing a six-fatality crash at Cochin, Norma Jean Mooswa has been sent back to jail for driving while prohibited.
Mooswa, a resident of Moosomin First Nation, was taken into custody Wednesday following her sentencing in North Battleford Provincial Court for her eighth conviction of driving while prohibited. She is to serve 12 months, as suggested by Crown Prosecutor Alexandra Findlay, and another 10 years of being prohibiting from driving has been added on to the present prohibition.
Mooswa will be 64 before she will be eligible to apply for a driver's license. However, said Judge Lorna Dyck as she pronounced her verdict, it's unlikely the province would issue a licence anyway.
Mooswa had pled guilty to the charge that stems from an incident Jan. 30 on Moosomin First Nation when the RCMP observed her driving. Her early plea was a mitigating circumstance in deciding on a sentence, said Dyck, as was the fact that there were no other charges and no alcohol involved.
Another mitigating factor was Mooswa's support from the community. The court had received letters from her parole officer, staff who worked with Mooswa during her incarceration and members of the Moosomin First Nation where she endeavours to help others learn from her experiences and has embraced traditional values.
"You've earned it," said the judge.
However, she declined legal aid lawyer Erin Dunsmore's submission that a conditional sentence order, or CSO, to be served in the community could be applicable. Citing case law, Dunsmore had suggested denunciation and deterrence could be accomplished through a CSO if there was no danger to the community. Referring to Mooswa's supporters, including those in the gallery, she said, "They don't need protection from her."
However, Dyck said given the defendant's record, it must be concluded serving her sentence in the community would pose a danger to the public, which is everyone at large, not just her supporters. It would also put people at risk in respect to things such as insurance, she said.
Neither did Dyck see a CSO as a deterrent to Mooswa reoffending, saying she had "no confidence" in the defendant following the terms of the prohibition, given the "blatant disregard" for court orders that had resulted in seven previous charges of driving while prohibited.
Dyck said case law indicates the appropriateness of the sentence should address the nature of the offence that brought about the prohibition that had been broken, which was the 2004 Canada Day crash that killed six people, at which time Mooswa had already been prohibited from driving.
"I'm not re-sentencing you for that," Dyck stressed, but she added it's important for the court to look at the seriousness of the past charges in order to put the present charge into context.
Referring to Mooswa's explanation that she had chosen to drive while prohibited because of what she believed was an emergency family situation, Dyck said she didn't find it acceptable.
"There will always be circumstances where people think they need to drive," said Dyck. Once Mooswa knew the RCMP were responding to the situation she saw as an emergency, "that should have been enough," she said.
"You didn't turn your mind to the prohibition," said Dyck, adding, "I'm troubled by that."
The judge also said she took into account the Gladue factor. (The Gladue Background Cultural Impact Factors, resulting from a Supreme Court Decision regarding sentencing for aboriginal offenders, cite: substance abuse, personally, in the immediate family, extended family and community; poverty, as a child, as an adult, offender's family or community; overt or covert racism in the community, by family members, strangers, school or workplace.)
"I'm not unsympathetic to your background," said Dyck.
Mooswa will probably serve her sentence at Pine Grove Correctional Centre for Women in Prince Albert, said Dyck, although Mooswa had asked to be sent to Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge near Maple Creek, where she served some of her last sentence.
