Hearing to determine where Leflar killer spends jail time

The debate is on regarding where one of the convicted killers of Hannah Leflar will spend his jail time, at least for the short term.

Skylar Prockner was dressed up in a long sleeve, collared, purple shirt wearing his glasses and sporting a brush-cut style hairdo Thursday afternoon for the first day of his placement hearing. It will determine whether the 19-year-old will be moved to an adult facility or if, for now, he’ll stay at the Paul Dojack Youth Centre, where he’s currently serving his sentence.

In July, Prockner was sentenced as an adult, receiving life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years.

He was 16 when he planned and carried out murdering Leflar, a fellow 16-year-old high school student. Another teenager also confessed to killing the girl, pleading guilty to second-degree murder in February. He can’t be named.

Crown Prosecutor Chris White said under the Youth Criminal Justice Act a young person who is sentenced as an adult is entitled to the placement hearing.

“There’s three options. Obviously one is the penitentiary. Two, is the provincial system or the correctional centre and three is the youth system or Paul Dojack,” explained White.

He said there’s a presumption when someone who’s been convicted of a crime turns 18 they automatically serve jail time in an adult facility. That could be the case, unless a judge can be convinced otherwise.

In this case, White isn’t convinced.

“He’s committed an adult crime. He should do adult time in an adult facility.”

There’s also a presumption no person under 20 should remain in youth custody, but again as White stated, there are exceptions.

Eventually, Prockner will be moved to a penitentiary.

But in the meantime, the defense argued Prockner should stay in youth custody for safety and family-related reasons. It was also argued the teen would have more access to programming there.

“Just because they’re there doesn’t mean he’s going to benefit from them,” challenged Judge Jennifer Pritchard.

It’s expected the defense will bring more detailed information about that programming and its availability to Prockner when the placement hearing resumes at Court of Queen’s Bench Friday afternoon.