A judge defended the one-day sentence he handed a carjacker who stole a Toronto driver’s Mercedes at gunpoint, blaming the man’s jailers for failing the community.
Jaiden Robinson, who spent 809 days (two years and 79 days) in pre-trial custody, pleaded guilty in the Ontario Court of Justice to robbery with a prohibited weapon for a March 2024, mid-afternoon carjacking at the Shops at Don Mills. Both the Crown and Robinson’s lawyer recommended he get the mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison.
“Some decry what they call the court’s catch-and-release approach to criminal justice,” Justice André Chamberlain wrote in a recent decision where he ruled that Robinson would have to spend just one more day in prison.
“If they truly believe that incarceration is the answer to our criminal justice problems, they should admit that the correctional institution’s neglectful approach to inmate care has led to shorter sentences, less time in custody, and lower rates of incarceration, even for serious offenders in some cases. The jails are the ones failing the community, the inmates, and the justice system.”
Despite repeated attempts from the courts and requests from Robinson, he didn’t get medical or dental treatment behind bars for an ankle injury or a broken tooth he suffered during his arrest, the judge said in his June 9 decision.
The court heard that Farzin Shahid-Noorai parked his 2023 Mercedes-Benz S580 at the Shops at Don Mills on March 15, 2024, at 3:45 p.m.
“Jaiden Robinson then emerged from behind the vehicle, wearing a black hoodie and balaclava, confronted Mr. Shahid-Noorai, and demanded the keys. Mr. Robinson, holding a firearm in his right hand, took the keys by reaching into Mr. Shahid-Noorai’s pocket, entered the Mercedes, and drove off,” said the decision.
“A bystander, Jack Dagleish, in his own vehicle, tried to block Mr. Robinson, who accelerated, struck Mr. Dagleish’s vehicle, and collided with a pole before fleeing. Police tracked the GPS-enabled Mercedes” to an address about nine kilometres away.
Police arrived around 4 p.m. and spotted Robinson by the luxury car’s trunk.
After a foot chase, they arrested him with a semi-automatic handgun that had a round in the chamber.
Robinson, 31, is a Black and Indigenous man.
“During his time at the Toronto South Detention Centre (the South), the Indigenous Unit was eliminated. In September 2025, correctional officers removed and disposed of the artwork, teachings and prayers that were in the former Indigenous range,” Chamberlain said.
“The position of Native Inmate Liaison Officer (NILO) has been and remains vacant, denying Indigenous inmates access to consistent Indigenous support services in the institution.”
Robinson is a “Status First Nations adult with maternal ties to the Carry the Kettle Nakota First Nation,” said the decision.
“His personal history reflects the enduring and well-documented impacts of intergenerational trauma arising from the legacy of residential schools and the colonial policies instituted by successive past governments, resulting in a cultural genocide. His maternal grandmother attended the Lebret Industrial School, and the resulting disruptions have contributed to a loss of cultural identity, fractured parenting models, and exposure to substance use and trauma within the family system.”
His “upbringing was marked by family instability, emotional suppression, and a disconnection from cultural supports and traditions.”
The death of his maternal grandfather when Robinson was 16 “represented a significant turning point in his life,” said the decision. “This loss appears to have intensified feelings of grief and abandonment, contributing to subsequent emotional dysregulation and substance use.”
In early 2024, Robinson “faced multiple concurrent stressors, including bereavements, a serious illness affecting someone close to him, financial instability within his family stemming from the impending foreclosure of his mother’s home, and the abrupt loss of a significant business contract” for his audio engineering business, said the decision.
“The convergence of these events is described as precipitating a ‘tailspin,’ and the temporal proximity between the loss of the contract and the index offence, within days, is particularly striking.”
Robinson, who had past convictions for aggravated assault, theft under $5,000, and robbery, described for the court conditions he was held in at the South.
“He was subjected to frequent and routine institutional lockdowns, amounting to at least 128 full days of continuous 24-hour confinement,” said the decision. “These lockdowns occurred weekly or near weekly and were often attributable to institutional staffing shortages rather than any misconduct by Mr. Robinson.”
The court heard Robinson “was regularly triple bunked, where three individuals are placed in a cell meant for two people, resulting in one inmate being required to sleep on the floor close to the shared toilet.”
After the Indigenous unit was shut down “wall-displayed pieces, including teachings, lessons, prayers, and pictures of Indigenous heroes, were removed and placed in garbage bins” last September, said the decision.
“The officers also took away personal medicine pouches gifted to inmates. Mr. Robinson and other inmates were ultimately given permission to retrieve the art and other displayed items from the garbage. Inmates, including Jaiden Robinson, filed a joint statement to the institution to complain, describing what they felt were deeply offensive and hurtful actions in the disrespectful treatment of their beliefs and culture.”
While both the prosecution and defence recommended the five-year mandatory minimum sentence, they did not agree on how Robinson’s time behind bars should be reduced to reflect “particularly harsh or oppressive” jail conditions during his pre-sentence custody.
Robinson’s “prospects for rehabilitation are promising, as he has shown periods of progress and positive movement, but he does need to address the underlying issues affecting him to manage his choices when challenges become overwhelming,” said the judge.
“Jaiden Robinson has lived his life under the yoke of racism and colonialism. His background reflects a textbook Gladue profile: entrenched intergenerational trauma, compounded childhood abuse and addiction, and systemic disadvantage, alongside clear evidence of resilience and rehabilitative potential when supported through Indigenous-led programming,” Chamberlain said.
“His offending behaviour is best understood as the culmination of these intersecting factors, significantly mitigating culpability and strongly engaging the remedial purpose of Gladue principles.”
Gladue principles stem from a landmark Supreme Court of Canada decision that require sentencing judges to consider the unique circumstances of Indigenous offenders to address their overrepresentation in Canada’s prisons. They require judges to take the impact of colonialism, residential schools and intergenerational trauma into account when sentencing Indigenous offenders.
“Chronic lockdowns” and overcrowded jail cells had an impact on Robinson’s mental health, said the judge.
“These conditions in the South, however, pale in comparison to the actions the South took to close the Indigenous range,” Chamblerlain said.
“It meant a limited ability to participate in ceremonies, smudging, and other traditional practices that would otherwise be afforded to inmates.”
What was “particularly galling,” said the judge, “were the actions taken by correctional officers in September of 2025 who removed traditional art, teachings, prayers, and posters of Indigenous heroes that remained on the walls of the former Indigenous range and disposed of them in the trash. They also confiscated medicine pouches that had been previously gifted to Indigenous inmates on those ranges. It is hard to fathom that the teachings and symbols of the Islamic, Jewish, or Christian faiths would have been so casually discarded in a trash bin.”
The South’s “actions against Jaiden Robinson constitute state conduct that falls below acceptable standards of humane detention,” Chamberlain said.
“They reflect a serious pattern of systemic neglect rather than mere isolated deficiencies, after more than a decade of the same excuses for lockdowns, triple bunking, and wanton disregard for the health and welfare of inmates in their fiduciary care. The South and other similar correctional actors have failed to protect and care for inmates. A serious lack of appropriate accommodations for medical, psychiatric, and cultural needs has been the norm.”
The Toronto South Detention Centre “deliberately chose not to follow its own policies protecting the rights of Indigenous inmates,” said the judge.
“For all these reasons, I find that the need to send a message to correctional institutions, in particular the Toronto South Detention Centre, demands that Jaiden Robinson be accorded … credit for the particularly harsh and demeaning conditions under which he was detained,” Chamberlain said.
“In my view, the appropriate reduction for the harsh conditions is 1.7 years.”
The judge also multiplied Robinson’s 809 days spent in jail by 1.5 as a credit for pre-trial custody.
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