Man gets 7 years in prison for carjacking, assaulting federal judge in Saskatoon
CBC
An out-of-province judge says if it was up to her, Brandon Wyatt Burns would be going to prison for longer than the 7 years and 90 days he received for a crime spree last year during which he assaulted a federal judge in downtown Saskatoon and robbed a highway gas station.
Burns, 31, pleaded guilty in provincial court on Friday to numerous charges including assault and robbery.
A Manitoba provincial court judge and a Crown prosecutor from Alberta were brought in to handle the case because one of the victims is a federal judge in Saskatoon.
Based on a joint submission from Crown and defence lawyers, Burns was sentenced to seven years and 90 days in prison. With credit for time already served on remand, the sentence was reduced to 2,134 days, or about five years and 10 months.
Judge Anne Krahn said she had to accept the joint submission but given Burns's "shocking" and "extraordinarily dangerous" actions she would have likely handed him a prison term in the "double digits" if sentencing were up to her.
Burns faced about a dozen charges, but some were withdrawn on Friday and he pleaded guilty to nine separate offences. Most stemmed from the April 1, 2025 crime spree, but he also pleaded guilty to assault and breach of conditions for a domestic violence case from earlier that year.
"Especially [with] the early guilty pleas, which is very significant because of the court time it saves and the stress and trauma it saves the witnesses and victims, the sentence he received is really the right sentence for what happened," defence lawyer Blaine Beaven said.
Burns, who is a member of James Smith Cree Nation but was raised on Keeseekoose First Nation, spoke in court.
"I want to apologize to everyone that I hurt and affected," he said.
Beaven said his client wasn't in a good state of mind on the day of the crime spree.
"There was definitely the use of substances, but a lot of hallucinations, a lot of hearing things that weren’t there, believing things that weren’t real … including he thought this was all a dream," Beaven said.
Burns has expressed a desire to rehabilitate through prison programming, Beaven added.
Burns's crime spree on April 1, 2025 started in downtown Saskatoon with the assault of a 71-year-old federal judge.
It happened around 10:30 a.m. in the 300 block of Third Avenue North. The judge was parking his truck when Burns got in and hit him in the head up to 10 times, court heard on Friday.
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