BLACK WOMEN LOSE COKE-TRAFFICKING DEFENCE

Not Entitled To Same Racial Concessions As Aboriginals, Court Of Appeal
Judges Rule

TORONTO -- The Ontario Court of Appeal has dismissed arguments that poor
black women from the Caribbean who try to smuggle cocaine into Canada
should escape jail time because of their race, gender and financial
circumstances.

In a judgment released Tuesday, the court rejected earlier rulings by two
Superior Court judges in Brampton, Ont., who imposed conditional sentences
on three single mothers who acted as drug mules and tried to smuggle
cocaine on flights from Jamaica to Toronto.

The judges had ruled the women were victims of systemic racial and gender
bias that should be considered in determining the sentence.

Aboriginal people have been identified by the courts as a group whose
social background is relevant in sentencing. But the appeal court said
these principles should not necessarily apply to black women.

"There was no evidence in the mass of material adduced in these proceedings
to suggest that poor black women share a cultural perspective with respect
to punishment that is akin to the aboriginal perspective," said Judge David
Doherty, who wrote the unanimous Court of Appeal decision.

The federal Department of Justice appealed the Superior Court rulings
because it argued the sentences would open the floodgates for traffickers
to use poor women to smuggle cocaine.

Two of the defendants, Marsha Hamilton and Donna Mason, received
conditional sentences of between 20 and 24 months, including periods of
house arrest, after a joint hearing before Justice Casey Hill.

Hamilton and Mason were convicted of separately attempting to smuggle drugs
by swallowing pellets of cocaine worth about $35,000 to $45,000 in each case.

The third woman, Tracy-Ann Spencer, initially received a two-year
conditional sentence from Justice Nancy Mossip in March 2003.

The 26-year old single mother of two, who came to Canada from Jamaica at
the age of 16, was convicted of attempting to conceal cocaine with a top
street value of about $75,000 in a false-bottomed suitcase.

The appeal court sentenced Spencer to 20 months' jail in addition to her
conditional sentence because she tried to import a greater quantity than
the other two women. The court said it would not order Hamilton and Mason
to spend time in jail since their conditional sentences are almost over.

Judge Hill had questioned the wisdom of putting the women in jail and noted
the "annualized cost" of a female prisoner in the Canadian penitentiary
system is $155,000.

However, in the appeal court ruling, Doherty wrote: "A sentencing
proceeding is not the forum in which to right perceived societal wrongs.
The trial judge does appear to have assumed the combined role of advocate,
witness and judge."