Alberta top court slashes prison sentence for woman who killed abusive husband

The Alberta Court of Appeal has slashed the prison sentence of a women who shot and killed her abusive husband in 2011, calling the original 18-year term a result of "outdated thinking."

Helen Naslund, a grandmother of eight, may be able to apply for parole by the end of 2022 after the court reduced her sentence for manslaughter to nine years. 

Naslund admitted that she shot her abusive husband, Miles Naslund, in the back of the head while he was sleeping in September 2011. She and her sons concealed the body and the crime stayed secret for six years. 

After lengthy negotiations between the Crown and her lawyer, Naslund pleaded guilty in March 2020 to manslaughter. In October 2020, the judge agreed to the joint sentencing submission of 18 years. 

In a majority decision filed Wednesday, Justice Sheila Greckol called the sentence unduly harsh because it failed to take into account Naslund's 27-year abusive marriage and disregards battered woman syndrome. 

"In those rare cases where the proposed sentence would bring the administration of justice into disrepute or would be contrary to the public interest, they should not be accepted," Greckol wrote. 

"This is one such case."

Greckol criticized the trial lawyers for even suggesting such a lengthy sentence without case law to back it up and Court of Queen's Bench Justice Sterling Sanderman for accepting it. 

"Counsel … failed to fully explain to the sentencing judge how they arrived at a sentence markedly harsher than those imposed in similar cases," Greckol wrote. "I find that the sentencing judge applied the wrong test in assessing the propriety of the joint submission."

Greckol cited numerous Canadian cases involving battered women who killed their partners. Their  manslaughter sentences ranged from a suspended sentence to eight years. 

During sentencing, Sanderman called the shooting "a callous, cowardly act on a vulnerable victim in his own home." 

Sanderman suggested Naslund could have left or found other options besides shooting her husband. 

"It is impermissible and outdated thinking to suggest that women who are unable to leave situations of domestic violence remain by choice," Greckol wrote.

"These observations of the sentencing judge overlook the decades during which Ms. Naslund was vulnerable and at risk in her own home."