After three gruelling weeks of witness testimony last spring, Alexandre Bissonnette — who killed six men in a Quebec City mosque last year — will be back in court Monday for the final stretch of his sentencing hearing.
In March, Bissonnette pleaded guilty to six counts of first-degree murder and six counts of attempted murder in connection with the January 2017 shooting.
By pleading guilty, the 28-year-old received an automatic sentence of life in prison.
What remains to be decided now is how long Bissonnette will have to wait before he's allowed to apply for parole, and whether removing that possibility altogether would be unconstitutional.
Shooter depicted as troubled, suicidal
Bissonnette's defence team will be the first to present closing arguments on Monday.
His legal aid lawyers, Charles-Olivier Gosselin and Jean-Claude Gingras, want their client to be eligible for parole 25 years into his life sentence.
The Crown, though, wants Bissonnette to serve his life-sentences consecutively, meaning he would have to serve 150 years in prison before being eligible for parole.
To do so, prosecutors will be invoking a controversial law brought in by the Conservative government in 2011, which allows judges to impose consecutive sentences.
Bissonnette's defence team will try to challenge the constitutionality of that law. They are expected to argue a 150-year sentence would violate his charter rights and represent "cruel and unusual" punishment.
During the sentencing hearings, Gosselin called on several expert witnesses who testified that Bissonnette showed potential for rehabilitation based on his level of intelligence and willingness to collaborate with health experts.
"It's not delusional to say he could work on these things, given the time he'll have," psychologist Marc-André Lamontagne said in his testimony.
The defence witnesses depicted Bissonnette as a troubled, immature person who had been bullied throughout his youth.
His lawyers said this intimidation has followed him to the Quebec City detention facility where he has been imprisoned for the past several months.
Bissonnette is reportedly kept in solitary confinement, sleeps in an anti-suicide blanket and is under 24-hour video surveillance.
Gosselin asked in May that his client be transferred to a federal prison as soon as possible, to provide him with more suitable psychological assistance.
Superior Court Justice François Huot is expected to rule on that request this week, before breaking for the summer and returning in September, when he will hand down his decision on the sentence.
Beyond redemption, Crown argues
This week's court sessions will be the Crown's last chance to convince Justice Huot that Bissonnette's crime merits the "exemplary sentence" it is seeking.
Prosecutor Thomas Jacques called his own psychiatric experts, who offered different depictions of Bissonnette's state of mind.
Psychiatrist Gilles Chamberland said he doubted Bissonnette could grow out of his narcissistic, fragile personality, and would still present a danger to society if he were released.
"Even if the risk was one in a million, it would be too high for me," Chamberland testified in April. He added that Bissonnette's murders were "loaded with racism."
Pointing to Bissonnette's internet search history, and extensive collection of weapons, the Crown sought to portray him as a lonely person obsessed with mass murderers.
But the Crown's most powerful piece of evidence may have come from the poignant testimonies of widows, children and friends of the victims, who explained how their lives have changed since the shooting.
Bissonnette was mostly impassive during their testimony. He did, though, seem to break down when the 14-year-old daughter of Azzeddine Soufiane spoke of her father as a hero who tried to disarm the shooter.
"I am proud. Proud of my father, of his action," Soufiane's daughter said.
Dozens of people who witnessed the shooting also described how their lives are now filled with a constant sense of dread at falling victim to another attack.
These deep scars were among the elements outlined in a court document submitted last week by Quebec's attorney general.
In the 54-page document, Justice Minister Stéphanie Vallée "requests the court throw out the challenge" made by Bissonnette's lawyers to the constitutionality of consecutive sentences.
She argues that article 745.51 of the Criminal Code, which provides for such sentences, "was put in place to reflect the tragic nature of multiple murder, by recognizing the value of each life lost."
Vallée also rejects the argument that "hope" can be used in a judicial context.
Ultimately, she writes, it is at the judge's discretion to determine, when, if ever, Bissonnette can ask for parole.