Seven-year sentence for attempted murder of pregnant ex-girlfriend ‘manifestly unfit,’ Court of Appeal rules

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The seven-year sentence given to a Toronto man who stabbed the mother of his unborn child in the neck, leaving her for dead, was manifestly unfit," the Ontario Court of Appeal has found in a ruling signalling to lower-court judges that rehabilitation must take a back seat to denunciation and deterrence" in cases of domestic violence.

Corey Cunningham will instead serve 15 years for attempted murder, the province's highest court ruled, effectively doubling the sentence handed out by Toronto Superior Court Justice Robert F. Goldstein last April.

Goldstein made several errors that resulted in a sentence that was manifestly unfit," the three-judge panel found in a written ruling released earlier this month.

Most significantly, he failed to give effect to the primary sentencing principles of denunciation and deterrence for attempted murder in a domestic context," the appeal panel found, ruling in favour of a Crown appeal.

This court has repeatedly emphasized that the principles of denunciation and deterrence are of paramount importance in cases involving domestic violence," the judges found, adding that such sentences must foster an environment in which individuals can feel free to leave romantic relationships without fear of harassment or harm.

At trial, court heard how Cunningham began plotting to kill his pregnant ex-girlfriend soon after they broke up in September 2019, including by convincing a friend to offer an alibi and tell police they were together the night of Oct. 11, 2019.

That night, Cunningham dressed in a disguise in an attempt to evade security cameras and showed up unannounced at his ex's apartment.

Though feeling unease, she let him into her unit; while he was sitting on the couch, she sat on the floor in front of him, purportedly so that he could give her a back massage.

Instead, he stabbed her in the back of her neck, narrowly missing arteries and veins," the court heard.

In a desperate bid to save her own life, the woman pretended to be dead by slumping to the floor and laying still.

Cunningham took $100 from her wallet and stole money and her phone from her pants pocket. He then kicked her to see if she would move, but she continued to play dead, court records show.

He then made a phone call and said: Yo, it's done," and, Meet me at the same spot."

Alone, the woman went to the bathroom where she believed she suffered a miscarriage. She then made her way to the apartment of a neighbour, who called 911. She was in the hospital for two weeks and did not carry the child to term.

At trial, Cunningham's alibi crumbled when his friend confessed to the police that he lied; he was not with Cunningham.

The appeal court noted that the sentencing judge had recognized the case's many aggravating factors, including the planned, deliberate, and cold-blooded" nature of the murder attempt.

Nevertheless, Goldstein, the sentencing judge, rejected the Crown's call for a life sentence, saying it would be crushing" for a young man with no criminal record and excellent" prospects for rehabilitation.

While he recognized that the attempted murder was in a domestic context", Goldstein concluded: I do not wish to overemphasize the principle of rehabilitation at the expense of the other sentencing principles, but it seems to me that Mr. Cunningham's rehabilitative prospects take this case into the lower end of the (sentencing) range."

He explained: I am not minimizing Mr. Cunningham's culpability, and I am certainly not discounting the terror that (the victim) must have felt, but this was not a case of stark horror.'"

Following Goldstein's initial sentence, Cunningham had been left with about 26 months left to serve, accounting for time served in pretrial custody.

The appeal judges wrote: The trial judge did not address the significance of domestic violence, including the fact that the victim was pregnant with the respondent's child, as well as that the attack represented an obvious desire to kill her to solve his own problem of unexpected parenthood."

Jason Miller is a Toronto-based reporter for the Star covering crime and justice in the Peel Region. Reach him on email: jasonmiller@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @millermotionpic