Lawyers for the prosecution and defence argued for sharply different sentences Wednesday in a Kentville, N.S., courtroom for a 23-year-old man who has admitted he was impaired and drove more than 170 kilometres an hour on a rural road before a crash that killed two of his friends.

Victoria Cousins and Brayden Lemmon, both 20, were rear-seat passengers in a Chevrolet Monte Carlo driven by Drake Brown when it slammed into a pickup truck on Aug. 24, 2023, near Windsor Forks, N.S. Both died at the scene, and a third passenger was injured.

Prosecutor Rob Kennedy argued for a sentence of seven years in prison, calling Drake a “menace” on the road that night, driving at well beyond twice the speed limit after he consumed cocaine, alcohol and marijuana.

It’s a crime, he said, that calls for denunciation and deterrence. The hopes and aspirations of two young people were “extinguished” by an avoidable and senseless tragedy, he said.

“This case illustrates perpetual harm, harm that will never subside,” Kennedy told the court.

Legal aid lawyer Jonathan Hughes is seeking a sentence of two years house arrest, followed by three years of probation that would include a period of curfew. He argued Brown’s pre-sentence report was “very positive,” his client is employed and has no criminal record.

He said the case has attracted media attention and notoriety, his client has been accosted at public events, and he “will never know a moment of peace.”

“This was a series of poor choices that resulted in unthinkable tragedy,” Hughes said.

Hughes told provincial court Judge Ronda van der Hoek that no matter what sentence she imposes, Brown “has to live the entirety of the rest of his life with the weight of the knowledge that his actions took the lives of two of his closest friends.”

The judge will issue her decision on April 15. In court were well over a dozen family and friends of the victims, who also attended the first day of sentencing last month. A number left the courtroom Wednesday unhappy that Brown has not yet been sentenced.

Brown pleaded guilty in September, on what would have been his first day of trial, to two counts of impaired driving causing death and one count of impaired driving causing bodily harm.

The court was told Wednesday that Brown said he doesn’t remember the crash. He said he can last recall being near the Martock ski hill, and next remembers waking up in hospital.

Question of remorse

Hughes said his client has shown remorse. The Crown, however, asserted that nowhere in the pre-sentence report does Brown accept responsibility, speak about taking two lives, or express “genuine remorse.”

Although Brown pleaded guilty and agreed to facts underpinning the crime, his pre-sentence report said he denied in an interview with a probation officer that he was the driver of the vehicle, “and noted he will take responsibility as he was ‘the owner of the car.’” The report also said both his parents do not believe he was the driver.

“He expressed remorse and stated, ‘there were a whole lot of mistakes that could have been avoided. I shouldn’t have picked anyone up,’” the report said. “He also acknowledged he was impaired by cocaine and alcohol the day of the collision.”

The report indicated Brown said he grew up in a good home. But he took his first drink at about 10 or 11 years old, and smoked marijuana for the first time around that age.

He left home for a two-year period during his teens following a dispute with his parents. The director of a local non-profit peer support group who was interviewed for the report described him during this period as a “homeless youth.”

Kennedy argued the conditional sentence sought by the defence “falls well short” of sentencing objectives for this type of crime.

“If a member of the public knew that he or she could drive impaired, kill two people and injure another, and not be sent to jail, penitentiary sentence, the prospect of that penalty would in no way dissuade them and it would bring the administration of justice into disrepute,” he said.

Hughes said it is “absolutely nonsensical” that members of the public would look at a court decision where an offender received a strict conditional sentence and then decide to “roll the dice” and drive drunk or high.

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