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| John L. Hill |
In 2021, Sheppard, then 58, was convicted of three sex crimes after a jury trial in Wetaskiwin, Alta. Following a week-long trial, the jury found Sheppard guilty of sexually abusing Steacy Easton during the 1993-94 school year at Saint John’s, when Easton was in Grade 7. Easton took the rare step of having the court remove a publication ban on the victim’s name, hoping that sharing the story would help reduce the stigma of being an abuse victim and encourage other victims to come forward.
Easton was 12 when the abuse began. The child’s family had chosen the school for its tough reputation. Easton was bullied and struggled to fit in with other classmates. Eventually, Sheppard showed interest in Easton, taking
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On March 30, 2021, after around nine hours of deliberation, jurors convicted Sheppard of three charges, including sexual interference, sexual contact with a child and sexual counselling of a child. He was sentenced to six years in prison.
Sheppard successfully appealed, and his sentence was reduced to three years and 11 months. The Crown contended that the Appeal Court was wrong to intervene and wished the original sentence to be restored. It appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, which released its written decision on Sept. 26, 2025 (R. v. Sheppard, 2025 SCC 29).
One might expect Canada’s top court to show little sympathy for Sheppard when Chief Justice Richard Wagner began the judgment with these words: “Sexual offences against children are among the most profoundly immoral acts an individual can commit. Historical sexual offences against children are no less grave, and demand no less accountability, than ones committed today.”
The judgment is significant not for its moral outrage, but rather for allowing the court to clarify the applicability of the principles set out in R. v. Friesen, 2020 SCC 9 when reviewing historical sexual offences against children, and to reaffirm the standard of appellate review described in R. v. Lacasse, 2015 SCC 64.
The Crown argued that the Alberta Court of Appeal was incorrect when it concluded that the sentencing judge failed to provide sufficient reasons to explain the factual findings. The Supreme Court determined that no deficiency would amount to an error in principle affecting the sentence. The Appeal Court should not have intervened.
Under the Lacasse framework, an appellant must not only identify an error in principle but also show that the error impacted the sentence. Appellate intervention is only permitted when a defect makes the sentence incomprehensible or review impossible. In such cases, the appellate court is justified in presuming the defect influenced the sentence because the lack of sufficient reasons makes it impossible to determine whether there was faulty reasoning. In this case, the sentencing judge’s reasons were sufficient. When the reasons are viewed in context, it is clear how she reached her factual findings, and she was not required to specify which findings were crucial to the jury’s verdict or which she arrived at through her own fact-finding process.
The second ground of appeal raised the issue of whether the principles and sentencing ranges set out in Friesen apply to historical offences, and if so, how.
Sentences for historical offences are appropriately determined in accordance with the sentencing regimes and societal perspectives that prevail at the time of sentencing.
The rationale for this approach is rooted in the principle of proportionality: sentences must be “proportionate to the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender” (Criminal Code, s. 718.1). A proportionate sentence depends, according to Friesen, on “society’s current understanding and awareness of the gravity of a particular offence and blameworthiness of particular offenders.” Societal appreciation of the nature of criminal acts is bound to evolve; when it does, so too must the sentencing regimes that apply to those acts.
In Friesen, the Supreme Court acknowledged that the sentences imposed for sexual offences against children were too lenient because they were based on outdated misconceptions about the seriousness of these crimes. The court directed courts to “take the modern recognition of the wrongfulness and harmfulness of sexual violence against children into account when determining the offender's degree of responsibility.” In practice, this meant that “sentences for sexual offences against children must increase” and that “[c]ourts are thus justified in departing from precedents.” While the retrospective application of higher maximum penalties is constitutionally prohibited, this does not apply to contemporary sentencing principles such as those outlined in Friesen.
The value of a historical decision relies on how comparable it is to the current case and how much relevant legal principles, societal attitudes and legislative provisions have evolved since then. For example, it is reasonable to assume that historical jurisprudence will be less valuable, at least at first glance, when analyzing offences now viewed from a very different perspective.
The correct approach is to sentence the offender in accordance with the principles and ranges prevailing at the time of sentencing. The sentencing judge’s failure to review historical jurisprudence did not constitute an error. His six-year sentence was restored.
Even though Sheppard had undertaken sex offender programming and had been paroled on his lesser sentence, denunciation and deterrence require his reincarceration to serve the balance of the six years imposed initially.
John L. Hill practised and taught prison law until his retirement. He holds a JD from Queen’s and an LLM in constitutional law from Osgoode Hall. His most recent book, Acts of Darkness (Durvile & UpRoute Books), was released July 1. Hill is also the author of Pine Box Parole: Terry Fitzsimmons and the Quest to End Solitary Confinement (Durvile & UpRoute Books) and The Rest of the (True Crime) Story (AOS Publishing). Contact him at johnlornehill@hotmail.com.
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