When sentencing a mentally ill offender for a serious violent offence, the mental illness must be considered as a factor permeating almost all aspects of the sentencing exercise — including moral culpability, general deterrence, specific deterrence, and objective seriousness — rather than being treated in a compartmentalised fashion. The Crown bears the onus of establishing future dangerousness to the criminal standard, while the offender bears the onus of establishing on the balance of probabilities that former dangerousness has been ameliorated by successful treatment. A sentencing judge's failure to give adequate weight to the pervasive effect of acute psychosis on the sentencing exercise may render a sentence manifestly excessive even where the relevant principles are correctly identified.
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