MANDEL: Thankfully, no jail time for Whitby dad who fired at armed intruders who shot his son

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It’s hard not to imagine any one of us being enraged dad Jason Munroe.

Fortunately, the Whitby father of three will not be going to jail for firing at the home invaders who shot his adult son – the Crown has lost its bid to overturn Munroe’s conditional sentence of two years of house arrest.

“Given the exceptional circumstances of the offence and the significant mitigating factors, we see no error in principle in this case,” wrote Court of Appeal Justice Steve Coroza on behalf of the three-judge panel. “Nor do we find that the sentence was manifestly unfit.”

According to court documents, gun-wielding intruders broke into the ironworker’s home, forced his family into the basement and during an altercation, shot his son in the leg. Munroe, 43 at the time, then wrestled the gun away from one of the intruders and shot him. As the men fled, the dad checked if his kids were okay — he saw his son was shot and his daughter was in shock — and then chased them upstairs in his underwear. As they took off in a car, he fired three more shots at them from his porch, but luckily didn’t hit anyone.

“When the police first interviewed Mr. Munroe, he lied and said that he did not have or use a gun,” Coroza wrote in the decision released this week. “He subsequently told the police that he used the gun he wrestled from the intruders to shoot at them, saying that he tried to kill them and that, if given the chance, he would have killed them all.”

A remorseful Munroe later told a pre-sentence report writer that he was trying to protect his family and his “adrenaline was out the roof.”

Acquitted of one charge last summer

Last summer, Ontario Court Justice Nathan N. Baker acquitted Munroe of charges related to shooting the armed intruder in his house, finding it was self-defence. But the judge ruled it was no longer self-defence when he opened fire on the fleeing men and convicted him of reckless discharge of a restricted or prohibited firearm. He also found him guilty of obstruction of a peace officer for lying in his initial police statement.

Munroe was facing a five-year mandatory minimum sentence for the reckless discharge, but the trial judge found it was unconstitutional if applied to the circumstances of this case. Baker gave Munroe a conditional sentence of two years less a day — with strict conditions that he must remain at home except for work and wear a GPS tracking device — followed by three years’ probation.

The Crown didn’t appeal the ruling on the unconstitutionality of the five-year mandatory minimum but did argue Munroe’s conditional sentence failed to satisfy the objectives of denunciation and deterrence and was “demonstrably unfit.”

The prosecutor called house arrest an “exceptionally low sentence” and argued for a six-year prison term to deter others from committing a similar “brazen act of retribution.”

The appeal panel disagreed.

Circumstances were exceptional

The trial judge recognized the seriousness of discharging a gun in a public place but also realized the circumstances here were exceptional, the appeal court said.

“When Mr. Munroe shot at the intruders from his porch, he was no longer acting in self-defence but he was still acting in the heat of the moment after seeing his family under threat and his son shot. In addition, Mr. Munroe used a handgun he had wrestled from the intruders to protect his family; this was not a handgun he acquired unlawfully and brought to the scene,” Coroza wrote on behalf of the panel.

“Besides the circumstances of the offence, there were other significant mitigating factors, such as Mr. Munroe’s demonstrated remorse and extensive rehabilitative efforts, and that he had overcome a turbulent youth to become a dedicated father and a skilled worker with a stable job and income.”

In an emailed statement to the Sun, Munroe’s lawyer Mark Halfyard said his client won’t be commenting on the appeal decision.

“He and his family are trying to put this terrible ordeal behind them,” he said.

And thankfully, he can do it from home – and not a jail cell.

mmandel@postmedia.com