A man who viciously beat an elderly woman to death after breaking into her Scarborough bungalow will be eligible to apply for parole after serving 15 years and nine months of his life sentence for second-degree murder.
The judge said he found Sinbad Marshall’s period of parole ineligibility should be 18 years — which was requested by the Crown. However, because Marshall spent a total of more than two years in segregation, the judge reduced his parole eligibility by 27 months.
“That was a gross violation of his (charter) right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual treatment or punishment,” Superior Court Justice Robert Goldstein wrote in his sentencing decision released Tuesday. The parole eligibility period for second-degree murder is between 10 and 25 years. The defence position was it should be set at 10, which is what Marshall’s jury unanimously recommended after convicting him in December.
Prosecutors argued Marshall’s rights were not violated because “he was the author of his own misfortune” and questioned what jail officials are supposed to do with an “ungovernable inmate.” Institutional records from the Toronto East Detention Centre show he was found guilty of 19 misconducts, including some involving racial epithets on correctional officers, throwing urine at them, or assaulting other inmates.
While Goldstein said there is no obvious answer to how to deal with an unruly prisoner, he agreed with the defence that 27 months in segregation is “shocking, deplorable, and unconscionable.”
In November 2015, Marshall broke into Stella Tetsos’s home through a basement window. When the frail, 82-year-old grandmother went to investigate the noise, Marshall attacked her, breaking every rib in her chest.
“It was nothing like a fair fight. It was a cowardly murder of a defenceless woman involving extreme violence,” Goldstein wrote.
As Tetsos lay dying in her basement, Marshall ransacked the home to rob it, cut the phone lines and drank some pop. He was wearing some of her jewellery when he was later arrested.
Marshall was on bail and probation when he killed Tetsos and had a lengthy criminal record. In 2013, he broke into another woman’s house and, when she arrived home, punched her in the face and chest and threatened to kill her if she called police.
The judge provided an overview of Marshall’s troubled background after reviewing a number of documents, including a Gladue report provided by Aboriginal Legal Services.
Marshall, one of 11 siblings, was born when his mother was 16. A psychiatrist concluded he has problems with impulse control, attentional problems and a cognitive disorder and has received various diagnoses including schizophrenia — and malingering, or faking his symptoms.
Goldstein stated he is aware that Marshall has been subject to systemic racism all his life as an Indigenous person. In addition, he said, “it is impossible to read of Mr. Marshall’s background without feeling a great deal of sympathy.”
Still, the judge said he “cannot be blind to the danger he poses. When I balance all the factors I find that the protection of the public must take precedence. All of the evidence strongly suggests that another serious crime of violence would follow a release.”
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