B.C. court finds Criminal Code first-degree murder parole provision unconstitutional

The Law Courts building, which is home to B.C. Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal, is seen in Vancouver, on November 23, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

The B.C. Supreme Court has found a section of the Criminal Code unconstitutional because it treats all offenders convicted of first-degree murder the same, regardless of the number of people they kill.

The court ruled in a decision released this week that the code’s provision requiring first-degree murderers be sentenced to 25 years in prison before being eligible for parole violated Charter guarantees against cruel and unusual punishment.

The case involves the murder of Caroline Bernard who was beaten to death with a baseball bat by her former partner Luciano Mariani while in her Bowser, B.C., home on Vancouver Island.

Mariani pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in June 2023, but he challenged the law requiring him to serve 25 years before being eligible for parole.

The BC Prosecution Service says in a written statement that the law could still be “saved” by the Charter’s reasonable limits clause, but a hearing has not been set.

Justice David Crossin’s ruling says that Canada’s so-called “faint hope” regime had been overhauled in the last three decades, but amendments to the code in 2011 prohibited offenders from “applying for a reduction in their parole ineligibility period.”

Crossin’s ruling says those changes meant that people convicted of killing one person receive the same sentence as those who kill multiple people, and the “principle of proportionality demands that offenders that have victimized one person receive a different sentence.”

The judge found the “moral culpability” and “gravity” of the offence of mass murder or serial murders is significantly different to offenders who commit “a single offence.”

The ruling outlines how Mariani planned to kill Bernard for months, evidently in response to her having an abortion after becoming pregnant early on in their relationship.

The man used the internet to plan the murder, searching for terms including “when you wanna kill your ex,” “I can’t believe you made me kill you,” “time needed to kill someone with a baseball bat,” and “what to do if you believe an eye for an eye and your child was killed.”

Mariani broke into Bernard’s home on Aug. 31, 2021, and beat her with a baseball bat while she was asleep, and the ruling says the “ghastly scene” was discovered by her young daughter.

Bernard died en route to hospital, and Mariani went to a park and tried to take his own life, but after failing, he approached a road construction worker and admitted to killing his girlfriend, telling the worker to call police.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 30, 2025.

Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press