Teacher-voyeur gets suspended sentence
Simon Lamarre, a schoolteacher who took upskirt photos of girls for years and was reported to police by his wife (now ex), was given a suspended sentence this week by judge Jean-Jacques Gagné. [See clarification below from reader H. John.]
Yves Boisvert is not impressed.
Meezly 11:04 on 2021-11-30 Permalink
The police did a stellar job protecting the public from a sexual predator and this judge just nullified that. Kudos to Boisvert for calling this out.
Joey 11:07 on 2021-11-30 Permalink
Étonnamment, le juge passe sous silence dans son jugement plusieurs éléments contenus dans les rapports, notamment l’« hostilité envers les femmes » entretenue par Simon Lamarre, de même que sa « difficulté de sévère intensité pour les intérêts sexuels déviants envers les adolescents ».
Awful.
Meezly 11:13 on 2021-11-30 Permalink
Aaron Persky was fired after public outcry on his lenient sentence for Brock Turner. I hope something similar will happen to Gagné.
carswell 11:17 on 2021-11-30 Permalink
One of the first duties of the state and its legal system is to protect the vulnerable. In this instance as in so many others, they have failed. I wonder if a woman judge would have been so unconcerned about Lamarre’s past — and future? — victims and the message a decision like this sends.
jeather 17:34 on 2021-11-30 Permalink
Compare and contrast with the teacher who was suspended over showing his students a music video he made, see if you can guess what motivates different treatment.
H. John 19:09 on 2021-11-30 Permalink
He was not granted a pardon.
Lamarre plead guilty. The prosecutor did not ask for jail time. She asked for a suspended sentence. Instead, the judge agreed with the defence and granted a conditional discharge.
A suspended sentence involves following conditions in a probation order for a period of one to three years.
With a conditional discharge a finding of guilt is made, but no conviction is registered. The conditions come in a probation order that can be in effect from one to three years.
Lamarre has to complete 150 hours of community service, and continue in therapy.
A conditional discharge stays on an offender’s criminal record for three years after the completion of the probation order. The offender doesn’t have to apply for a pardon for the discharge to be removed from his/her record.
The main difference between a conditional discharge and a suspended sentence is that an offender who gets a suspended sentence has a conviction registered against them. This means that the offender who gets a suspended sentence will have a criminal record and will have to apply for a pardon to have the conviction removed from their record.
Kate 19:37 on 2021-11-30 Permalink
Once again, H. John, thank you for your correction. It’s invaluable.
jeather 19:51 on 2021-11-30 Permalink
Roberge has since announced he has lost his license to teach.
carswell 21:53 on 2021-11-30 Permalink
So, if Simon Lamarre can no longer teach (and hurrah for that), doesn’t that cut the legs from under the judge’s reasoning that his PhD shouldn’t go to waste?
And isn’t the message to other potential offenders that a higher degree will get them a much reduced sentence? (Being a bit facetious here but only a bit.)
At least Simon Lamarre’s name is sure to come up in future Web searches by prospective employers. He needs to be kept far away from children at all times, not just in school settings.
Kate 23:00 on 2021-11-30 Permalink
It’s an old legal principle, carswell. Originally called benefit of clergy, after a point it came to mean that literate people were spared execution. “In 1351, under Edward III, this loophole was formalised in statute, and the benefit of clergy was officially extended to all who could read. For example, the English dramatist Ben Jonson avoided hanging by pleading benefit of clergy in 1598 when charged with manslaughter.” But there was no Google then.
H, John 03:03 on 2021-12-01 Permalink
Carswell, Lamarre can teach, as he has for the last number of years, at any college or university.
I really don’t understand the question about a message to other potential offenders. People who commit crimes don’t pre-think “what will this get me.” We know that.
H. John 03:11 on 2021-12-01 Permalink
Everyone can decide for themselves whether they’re looking for punishment or rehabilitation.
An important part of Canada’s criminal justice system is reintegration.
Lamarre plead guilty which means not a single victim had to testify; and yes, that may have made a difference.
The prosecutor has an ugly and depressing job. Regardless of what she thought was an appropriate sentence, someone is bound to say that’s not enough.
She reviewed the case she had before her, and compared it to other “like” cases.
She, or her office, did not ask for jail time.
I wouldn’t want her job.
And I don’t think Yves Boisvert’s column is fair. If he wanted to be fair, he could have said what he thought the sentence should have been, so we could understand where the prosecution or judge went wrong.
She was in the court room. He wasn’t.
Kate 10:23 on 2021-12-01 Permalink
Granted that journalists are not in the courtroom throughout, it’s their job to convey the facts they know will be of most interest to readers. But they don’t “waste” paragraphs on explaining the points of law that explain the outcome, as in this case.
H. John, when you say “Everyone can decide for themselves whether they’re looking for punishment or rehabilitation” you really mean that a person in Lamarre’s situation is able to choose his fate? It’s not imposed on him by the court?
Meezly 11:10 on 2021-12-01 Permalink
I thought that Boisvert’s article was totally fair and made his point well. Right off the bat in the article, he stated:
The man is a candidate for rehabilitation, and the public prosecutor requested a simple “suspension of sentence”. The defense pleaded for a “conditional discharge”.
And the judge went with the defense. Then elaborated on his various patriarchal reasons why Lamarre is getting so much leniency, all in the interest of reintegrating him back into society and resuming his career as soon as possible.
The conditional discharge, the downplaying of Lamarre’s crimes, willfully ignoring Lamarre’s misogyny and even showing empathy that his ex-wife was partially to blame, etc. All this sends the wrong message to society, especially to victims. That if you plead guilty and have a sympathetic judge, a sexual predator (esp. one that is white, male, and highly educated) can get away with a lenient sentence or conditions.
This Happens All the Time. Because the justice system is still steeped in sexism (and other isms). So if the prosecutor was basing her case on other “like” cases, then that is where it all started going wrong because she was looking at a history of sex predators getting away with light punishment. As Boisvert wrote, Lamarre only “risked a sentence varying from little to almost nothing.”
david1441 19:20 on 2021-12-01 Permalink
I like it how people hand waive almost every stupid decision our culture-victim, navel-gazing, ultra-liberal judges throw up there . . . until it’s something that they happen to have strong feelings on like this one.
This is the tip of the iceberg, people! Look at some of the murder sentences people are getting! It’s insane.
H. John 04:28 on 2021-12-02 Permalink
Kate, sorry I wasn’t clear. When I said “Everyone can decide” I was trying to say we each get to decide what we expect or want our criminal justice system to do. Is it punishment, lock them up for ever, or lock them up and rehabilitate them.