Race played a role in Ontario drug dealer's sentencing: 'This somewhat attenuates his moral responsibility'
A judge took a Toronto drug dealer’s race into account when he sentenced him for trafficking and possessing a loaded handgun while under a court-ordered firearm prohibition.
The judge was persuaded that Brandon Caleb’s “life experiences flowing from his societal disadvantage and anti-Black racism normalized gun possession in his mind,” said the recent decision. “This somewhat attenuates his moral responsibility.”
Caleb was found guilty on the three charges in Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice last summer.
“I am satisfied on a balance of probabilities that factors in Mr. Caleb’s life played a significant role in his criminal activity and which diminish his moral culpability,” Justice Mohan Sharma wrote in a the Feb. 17 decision.
“They include his history and experience of anti-Black racism; challenges at school; the absence of Black role models; growing up in a community where criminal activity, specifically, drug trafficking and gun violence were normalized; and a desire to fit in and belong.”
The court heard the Toronto Police Service obtained warrants to search a car and a home in May 2022 with information investigator’s gleaned by tapping Caleb’s mobile phone during a drug probe dubbed Project Venom.
During their May 19, 2022 search of the home where Caleb was staying, police found a measuring cup “with white powdery residue in it,” two black digital scales, and two phones “located on the living room floor where Mr. Caleb was found sleeping on a mattress with his infant child.”
Ontario Provincial Police “officers also found a loaded firearm in the pocket of men’s jeans in a dresser shelf in a bedroom closet,” said the decision.
Intercepted calls convinced the judge Caleb made a series of drug transactions in the spring of 2022.
There was some debate in court about the types of drugs Caleb was dealing during the calls.
Though the judge indicated he was satisfied that, on three occasions caught on the wiretap in March of 2022 and once again that April, “that the substances in these calls were controlled substances — either cocaine, crack cocaine, or fentanyl.”
The judge was convinced Caleb lived at the home and “that he had knowledge and control of the firearm.”
Caleb conceded that if he was found guilty on that count, he broke an order made by an Ontario Court of Justice judge on Oct. 24, 2013, banning him from possessing a firearm.
Sharma gleaned information about Caleb from a pre-sentence report and an Impact of Race and Culture Assessment (IRCA), as well as his criminal record.
Caleb had past convictions in Toronto for possession for the purpose of trafficking, fleeing police and breaking a court order.
The 39-year-old has also been convicted of fraud over $5,000 and two counts of robbery.
“Much of Mr. Caleb’s history is from the IRCA Report, prepared by Ms. Colleen Sparks,” a forensic cultural assessor and social worker.
“Her report finds that the impact of institutionalized oppression, racism, and discrimination are significant factors to Mr. Caleb’s trajectory into the criminal justice system.”
Caleb “was born in Antigua and Barbuda and moved to Canada with his mother … when he was two,” said the decision.
Caleb, who was living with a friend in Scarborough before his sentencing, “is the biological father of three children, aged 14, 11 and three,” it said.
Until the age of 25, Caleb “lived in community housing in the Lawrence Heights community in North York.”
In her IRCA report, “Sparks described the Lawrence Heights community as low income, densely populated, disadvantaged, and marginalized, with significant exposure to criminal influences. More than 50 per cent of the housing is made up of units with three or more bedrooms, with tenants mostly of West Indian and African descent, whose annual income is approximately $15,000. She opined that growing up in this community significantly impacted Mr. Caleb’s involvement in the criminal justice system.”
There, “he was exposed to drug users, dealers, and addicts at a young age. He also recalls police surveillance of the community and being stopped several times by the police. He reported knowing friends and others in the community who were shot and killed by gun violence, and an inability to get away from it. His sister reported one event when Mr. Caleb was shot at.”
According to Sparks, “that exposure to criminal activity can be impactful on youth in this community, especially Black males who internalize it as normal. This increases an individual’s susceptibility towards criminality.”
Sparks “believed Mr. Caleb normalized the accounts of gun violence and killings he experienced as routine occurrences.”
Caleb was introduced to marijuana by peers at the age of 15 or 16, said the decision. “By grade 10, his marijuana use increased from weekly to daily.”
He started selling pot before dropping out of Grade 12.
“He reported to Ms. Sparks that he saw it as a faster way to make money ‘to purchase a car to drive to meet girls … and to purchase things (he) saw on television.”
His mother suspects he has undiagnosed Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
“Ms. Sparks cites social science studies which suggest that adolescents with ADHD may engage in harmful behaviour patterns, including delinquency, reckless driving, and/or substance misuse due to impaired cognitive and executive function deficits.”
According to Sparks, factors “that likely influenced his engagement in criminal activities and his life trajectory” include growing up in a “low-income community with high rates of criminality; his exposure in the community to drug use, drug dealing, addiction, and gun violence at an early age, and its normalization in the community; (and) his trauma from experiencing police prosecution, gun violence and death in his community.”
His circumstances growing up, Sparks said, “set a trajectory for Mr. Caleb, like other similarly situated young Black men, to internalize a need for belonging, and a diminished sense of hope for a positive future.”
The Crown argued that an appropriate sentence would be nine years in prison.
Caleb’s lawyer recommended two years of house arrest, plus probation based on several mitigating factors.
“These include his reduced moral blameworthiness, based on factors Ms. Sparks identified in the IRCA Report.”
The judge determined Caleb “was more like a street level dealer, than mid-level dealer.”
Sharma sentenced Caleb to four years and 160 days in prison, noting that penalties for the handgun and the trafficking were at the “lower end” of the available range.
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