Call it trial by Facebook.

When justice wasn’t served inside a Sarnia courtroom this month, an unconventional appeal was spontaneously mounted in a much-less-hallowed hall: an online comment thread.

On Jan. 15, James Trevor Munroe, 23, was slapped with a year in jail after pleading guilty to possessing just over three ounces of marijuana for trafficking, a relatively small amount that typically garners a 30- or 60-day sentence.

But the federal prosecutor, Munroe’s lawyer and even the judge, who called the sentence “extremely harsh,” said their hands were tied. Canada’s new mandatory minimum sentencing laws said the penalty must be one year in jail.

“This is mandatory, not much I can do,” the Sarnia Observer quoted Munroe saying afterwards.

But within days, a ragtag defence team composed of Toronto lawyers and prosecutors serendipitously assembled on Facebook, at first decrying the steep sentencing before discovering the amount of marijuana did not even qualify for mandatory minimum sentencing.

After the mistake was brought to the attention of a federal prosecutor in charge of Ontario’s criminal appeals unit — again on Facebook — Munroe was released on bail, just over a week into his year-long stint.

“My legs gave right out,” Munroe told the Star. “If crying wouldn’t have made things worse in jail for me, it would have been a time I cried.”

The virtual retrial began on Jan. 17, when Toronto criminal lawyer John Struthers posted a news article about Munroe’s sentence on his Facebook feed.

“I was sort of outraged by this,” Struthers said in an interview. “I was thinking: ‘Is this the new normal?’ This is getting to be absurd, for three ounces of pot.”

Friends in Struthers’ network, many of them lawyers, began weighing in, debating the merits of tougher drug legislation, passed in 2012 under the Safe Streets and Communities Act.

Soon, debate turned to curiosity — did this even apply?

Munroe had 97 grams, or 3.4 ounces, of marijuana, and a recent prior drug trafficking conviction. But according to the legislation, there must be three kilograms of marijuana to warrant a mandatory minimum sentence of one year, even with the previous trafficking conviction.

Several lawyers piped in, linking to the law online and saying the mandatory minimum didn’t apply in the case. “Someone get this fellow bail,” one said.

Nick Devlin, another one of Struthers’ Facebook friends who leads the federal criminal appeals unit in Ontario, then joined in to say he knew about the issue and his office was looking into it.

By the end of last week, court officials in Sarnia were briefed on the misinterpretation. Neither David Stoesser, Munroe’s defence lawyer, or Michael Robb, the prosecutor on the case, returned requests for comment.

On Monday, a short hearing was held and Munroe was granted bail while his sentence is being appealed. The news came to Munroe while he was working in the Sarnia jail kitchen, making him go “full-out noodle-legged.”

By the time his grandmother picked him up from jail, he was “four feet in the air,” she said.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“He said it was the worst 12 days of his life,” Carol Munroe said, adding her grandson is a “very tiny kid” who complained that everyone in jail is big.

“And I said: ‘You remember it’… He was wrong and I really want him to know, he did do wrong.”

When he got home that night, Munroe said, he didn’t want to go to sleep, afraid he would wake up back in jail.

“You know? Like, who does that kind of stuff happen to?” he said.

Munroe is grateful to the lawyers who realized his sentence was too long, though he admits he doesn’t completely understand why he’s out — “I’m just happy I am.”

He plans to start sleeping and eating right, “get my mind better,” then apply for school.

“It made me realize, people are given second chances and there are people that are interested. So I guess I owe those people,” he said.

Though Munroe may be re-sentenced to 30 or 60 days in jail, it’s likely he will be given credit for time already served.

Calling the mandatory drug sentencing requirements “convoluted, new, messy and subject to interpretation,” Struthers said he can understand how the mistake was made. The avid Facebook user says he’s just glad he posted the story so the sentence could be set right.

Devlin agrees, saying it’s a testament to the power of social media.

“While a lot of people in the criminal justice system are wary of putting too much of their personal lives on social media, this case sort of shows the strengths and benefits of a collegial legal community, whether its virtual or face-to-face,” he said.

Read more about: