APPEAL COURT RAPS ANOTHER RULING BY JUDGE

A controversial Manitoba judge is in the hot seat once again for
making a series of statements about "rampant" drug abuse in inner-city
schools and neighbourhoods that struck a raw nerve with the province's
highest court.

The Manitoba Court of Appeal weighed in on the case Tuesday, saying
Brian Corrin used "inappropriate stereotypes" to consider the case of
a young suburban teen who pleaded guilty to a drug-fuelled robbery
spree.

Corrin's decision to give the man a six-month jail term has now been
overturned -- the fifth time in as many months the appeal court has
found grounds to intervene in his cases.

The most recent one involves a youth who pleaded guilty last year to
10 counts of robbery.

The teen has grown up in a middle-class suburban home just outside the
city with loving, supportive parents, court was told. He had no prior
criminal record but found himself struggling with a drug addiction.

Defence lawyer Ryan Rolston was seeking a deferred custody sentence
that would keep his client out of jail and allow him to reside at Teen
Challenge, a highly successful program that helps young men beat their
addictions and get their lives back on track.

The youth had already spent nearly six months at Teen Challenge while
out on bail and was making great progress, court was told.

The Crown was not seeking real jail, either.

But Corrin rejected the community-based proposal and launched into a
lengthy speech that minimized the youth's drug addiction and implied
he should be held to a higher standard.

"This was not a youth who was subject to the peer pressure that we
normally associate, for instance, with inner-city drug abuse. This is
a youth who went to school in a relatively bucolic place outside the
city, where I doubt if anyone could argue drug use is rampant," said
Corrin.

"I'm sure drugs are everywhere, but we're not dealing with one of the
inner-city schools where avoiding drugs is a problem virtually for all
the kids because of the dealers who hang about and the negative peer
culture which is presenting constantly and which we hear about in this
court repeatedly."

Corrin added that "to send him home to play videogames" without real
jail was not appropriate.

"He would still have the benefit of all the amenities that a suburban
middle-class home in the country would offer," he said.

Appeal court justices Barbara Hamilton, Martin Freedman and Richard
Chartier took exception to much of Corrin's comments, saying they were
"focused on irrelevant factors and made findings not supported by the
evidence."

"It is important to note that there was no factual foundation before
the court that drug activity in the inner-city high schools was more
widespread than in the school attended by the young person," the
judges wrote.

They also noted the plan was never to "send (the youth) home" as
Corrin claimed.

"As a result of these comments... it is hard to resist the conclusion
that the young person received a harsher sentence simply because he
did not come from a dysfunctional family or an unfavourable
neighbourhood, rather than because of his actions. In other words, at
minimum, his remarks suggest that he considered inappropriate
stereotypes," the appeal court wrote.

Earlier this year, the same court found Corrin had "embellished"
evidence presented to him by lawyers and handed down an illegal
sentence in a case involving a Winnipeg university student who damaged
13 red-light cameras during a year-long vandalism spree.