Appeal for decade-old murder thrown out by Nunavut appeals court

A Cape Dorset man's attempt to see his 2016 first-degree murder sentence reduced to manslaughter has beenrejected by Nunavut's appeals court.

Jeffrey Salomonie was charged for brutally beating and sexually assaulting 33-year-old Daisy Curley, who died in her home in May 2009.

But Salomonie claimed the judge was in error when he said that the sex act was nonconsensual and part of the murder.

First-degree murder carries a life sentence, with no chance for parole for 25 years.

One definitionof first-degree murder requires a death to be intentional or premeditated. But a killing can also be classified as a first-degree murderwhenanother serious crime, called a "crime of domination," happens at the same time as a murder. Sexual assault is one of those crimes.

Salomonie's lawyer also argued that the trial judge, chief justice Neil Sharkey, didn't account for how intoxicated the manwas. He said he was too drunk to cause an intentional death.

A court decision released recently says a panel of judges dismissed the appeal in February.

"We find no reviewable error in the trial judge's conclusion that the appellant caused (her) death while committing a sexual assault upon her," the appeals judges wrote.

Sharkey had called Salomonie's testimony unreliable, and instead used evidence found at the crime scene to make his decision.

The woman was beaten badly, in places with a hockey stick, and was found naked from the waist down in her homenearly a week later.

At the time of trial, Salomonie had offered to plead guilty to manslaughter, but that was rejected by the Crown.

"The appellant suggests ... there is no way to assess whether [sexual assault]was part of a continuous transaction with the murder," the decision reads.

The appeals court judges called this argument "flawed," and ruled the trial judge was correct when he said the woman was "beaten and sexually manhandled." They also saidthat blood stains on her body show a sexual assault occurred at the time of the physical assault.

The appeals panel also held with the ruling at trial that Salomonie could not continually beat the woman's head with his fists and with a hockey stickwithout understanding that she could die, even if he was highly intoxicated.