A judge at Port Coquitlam Provincial Court sentenced a cocaine dealer last month to two years behind bars.
But the accused won’t be going to jail.
That’s because Joshawa James Michael Hall, who was convicted last November of possession of cocaine for the purposes of trafficking, has been in custody since his arrest in April 2023 and has already served time.
According to the written ruling by Judge Wilson Lee, Hall, 28, was arrested after police searched his recreational vehicle and found a backpack that included:
- plastic bags
- with a total of 16.83 ounces of cocaine and seven fluorophenyl pills
- a scale with white residue
- a Smith & Wesson magazine with eight live rounds
- bills and coins
- a wallet with identification that had his image but different names
As well, police discovered a gym bag with cellphones, licence plates and documents with Hall’s name.
Crown counsel asked Lee to sentence Hall to 36 months in prison while Hall’s defence lawyer sought a 20-month custodial sentence.
In his decision, Lee described how Hall became addicted to alcohol at 18 before migrating to cocaine. “At trial, he described the frequent use of nitrous oxide as a means of escaping reality,” Lee wrote.
At 18, Hall was convicted of assault with a weapon; his last offence was a year later, in February 2015.
In 2023, at the time of the cocaine seizure in his RV, Hall was under strict house arrest conditions, Lee noted.
Still, the judge raised Hall’s mitigating factors: a history of alcoholism in his family and abandonment by his mother.
Lee said he would have imposed a sentence of 24 months in custody, or 730 days; however, as Hall has been in remand for 721 days, the defence lawyer asked for one and a half days of credit for each day held.
“With 721 days in custody, the available credit is 1,082 days, which exceeds the sentence I would have imposed,” Lee wrote. “As such, no further time in custody is required.”
Lee also banned Hall from having firearms for 10 years.
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