Misha Pavelick’s killer will serve prison time in adult custody

The man who killed Misha Pavelick will serve any time he’s sentenced to in adult prison, despite having been 17 at the time of the crime in 2006.

That was confirmed at his sentencing hearing this week at Regina’s Court of Kings Bench.

Lea Zohner, a supervisor with community corrections for Saskatchewan, confirmed to court on Wednesday that, because the offender is older than 20, he would serve his sentence in federal prison and would have almost no interaction with the youth system, even if he were given a youth sentence.

Read more:

• ‘Cruelty every day’: Misha Pavelick’s family shares grief at sentencing hearing
• ‘Beyond dangerous’: Jury hears from defence for first time in Misha Pavelick murder trial
• ‘Screaming and running’: witnesses who were at the party testify at Misha Pavelick murder trial

A youth sentence for second-degree murder is no more than seven years, usually broken up into four years in custody and three in the community. An adult sentence is life in prison with no chance of parole for at least 10 years and, at most, 25 years.

Crown lawyer, Adam Breker, took Zohner through a large bound booklet comprising the convicted man’s custody records. They included documents on community safety plans, risk assessments, weekly and annual reports from the Paul Dojack Youth Centre, incident reports, electronic monitoring agreements and safety agreements.

Most of the documents were from youth corrections, but some were from time in adult custody. From the questions and answers, it wasn’t clear what all the charges were or how many there were.

Psychological report

In the afternoon, Dr. Mirna Vrbancic – a Saskatchewan psychologist – was called on to answer questions about her psychological report on the convicted man.

She administered a number of tests in December and said, overall, she came to the broad conclusion that he’s a lower functioning person, particularly verbally.

Vrbancic was also tasked with assessing his cognitive capacity at the time of the killing in 2006. She spoke a lot about the interplay between cognition and psychosocial development.

She said, in his case, there’s an indication that he didn’t develop psychosocially, saying that would be indicative of pleasure-seeking, sensation-seeking and an inability to take a reasonable approach. She said he also hasn’t achieved the cognitive capacity of an average 16-year-old.

Vrbancic explained that it’s not necessarily his mental health that underlies his criminal activity, but rather his life situation and inability to control himself.

However, she also said there wasn’t enough evidence available to determine whether the man’s actions at the time of the killing were a product of youthful immaturity or a set way of approaching life.

She said if he had the appropriate cognitive capacity at 17, she would hope he would have developed further after that and would stop committing crimes.

She believed the fact he continued to commit crimes after the killing in 2006 is probably in large part because he lacks cognitive capacity for thinking things through, and psychosocial capacity for controlling himself.

In response to questions from defence lawyer, Andrew Hitchcock, Vrbancic also allowed that things could have happened in the intervening years since the killing that could reduce cognitive performance, like concussions or substance use.

Mental health

Court also heard from child psychiatrist, Dr. Senthil Damodharam, who was called on to give his assessment of the convicted man’s mental health at the time of the killing and today.

On Tuesday, he said he reviewed multiple documents created at the time and over the years. He has also had two meetings with the convicted man.

Damodharam warned that there are challenges in doing an assessment so far removed in time, including dealing with a hindsight bias where a person sees the past in a better or worse light than it was.

The doctor said he believes the man would have had a conduct disorder at the time of the killing – he couldn’t find any evidence to support any more serious diagnoses.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual defined a conduct disorder as “a repetitive and persistent pattern of behaviour in which the basic rights of others or major age-appropriate societal norms or rules are violated.”

For the diagnosis, the person needs to exhibit at least three of 15 criteria, which include aggression, destruction of property, deceitfulness and serious violation of rules.

If he were seeing this now, Damodharam said several times that he would investigate other diagnoses like ADHD.

Damodharam explained the man’s behaviour was affected by his friends and substance use, and as a young person, it was more influenced by friends. As he got older, however, it was influenced more by substance use. He said the man had been sober since some time in the 2020s.

The defence didn’t end up calling any evidence of its own around sentencing.

On April 2, arguments are expected over whether the offender should be sentenced as a youth or an adult and what that sentence should be.