A lawyer for a man who beat his former girlfriend to death with a baseball bat while she lay in bed has launched a constitutional challenge to the automatic sentence for first-degree murder: life in prison with no eligibility for parole for 25 years.
Luciano Emilio Mariani, 45, pleaded guilty last July to first-degree murder in the death of Caroline Jennifer Bernard on Aug. 31, 2021, at her home in Bowser.
John Conroy, who is representing Mariani, is presenting a constitutional challenge to the 25-year wait for parole eligibility, calling it a “one-size-fits-all” sentence that “doesn’t provide for individualization.”
Conroy said until late 2011, offenders who had served 15 years were able to apply in court to reduce the number of years before they were eligible for parole. That 15-year review is what he’s trying to restore, he said.
If he’s successful, the decision would affect all those sentenced after Dec. 2, 2011, Conroy said.
Before the murder, Mariani had moved from Alberta to the Island and was staying with Bernard on and off beginning in March 2021, prosecutor Nick Barber told court when Mariani pleaded guilty last year.
Bernard became pregnant with his child. She kicked Mariani out of her home in May 2021 and he returned to Alberta. Bernard terminated the pregnancy the following month.
Mariani returned to the Island a few months later in a truck borrowed from his father, leaving Calgary on Aug. 23, 2021.
He bought a baseball bat in a Value Village in Vancouver and a roll of hockey tape at Canadian Tire in Duncan. At some point, he wrapped the bat with the hockey tape.
On Aug. 31, around 4:10 a.m., Mariani broke the sliding glass door into Bernard’s bedroom and killed Bernard as she lay in bed.
Barber called it “a very brutal beating.” A pathologist found multiple fractures to the right side of her face.
Police found Mariani had made several searches online related to murder, including “How do you feel after committing a murder,” “What do you do when you want to kill your ex?” and “Time needed to kill someone with a baseball bat.”
Shortly after the beating, Mariani found some people on the side of the road and confessed to killing his ex-girlfriend, Barber previously said.
Mariani will be sentenced after a ruling on the constitutional challenge and will move from provincial custody, where he has spent the last several years, to the federal system.
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