New York’s Supreme Court has turned down an attempt by a notorious sex offender with ties to Nova Scotia to have a 2022 parole decision that keeps him incarcerated thrown out.
The decision comes as William Shrubsall, 53, faces another parole hearing later this month.
On the third day of a 1996 trial in Niagara Falls, N.Y., for sexually assaulting a teenage girl, Shrubsall did not show up. His lawyer announced his client had left a suicide note saying he was going to jump into Niagara Falls. This was also the day jury deliberations began.
Shrubsall turned up in Halifax within days. Living under several aliases, he committed a string of violent crimes and sex assaults before being arrested in June 1998.
Shrubsall was designated a dangerous offender in 2001 and given an indeterminate prison sentence.
Shrubsall is led through Niagara County Court in Lockport, N.Y., on Jan. 22, 2019. (Tim Fenster/The Union-Sun & Journal via AP)
A CBC News investigation revealed Canadian parole board members did not challenge factual misrepresentations made to them by Shrubsall in a 2018 parole hearing. Their controversial decision to parole him paved the way for his 2019 deportation to the U.S., sparking outrage.
In 2020, Shrubsall pleaded guilty to bail jumping and criminal contempt, but he appealed that, arguing in part that his constitutional right to a speedy trial was denied.
A 2023 court decision from the Supreme Court of the State of New York’s Appellate Division, Fourth Department rejected Shrubsall’s appeal, “noting the genesis of the extraordinary delay here was defendant’s decision to absent himself from his ongoing sex offenses trial.”
Shrubsall’s latest legal manoeuvring was an attempt to have the New York State Board of Parole overturn the 2022 decision that noted his release would be “incompatible with the welfare of society.”
He appealed that decision to the state’s Supreme Court in Wyoming County. In a decision issued Sept. 8, 2023, acting Supreme Court Justice Michael M. Mohun wrote that the parole board members “sufficiently stated” their reasons for denying parole, citing Shrubsall’s “instant offenses and his prior criminal record.”
What the latest court decision says
Shrubsall appealed the decision, which was rejected late last month by the Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, Fourth Department.
The latest decision notes that Shrubsall argued the parole board “failed to measure his rehabilitation under current legislative mandates because it did not use a risk and needs assessment instrument tailored to his programming.”
Shrubsall was declared a dangerous offender in December 2001. Shown in the background is Paul Carver, one of the Crown lawyers who prosecuted Shrubsall. (CBC)
However, the court disagreed.
The decision went on to say that despite Shrubsall’s arguments, “the Board properly considered the requisite factors and adequately set forth its reasons to deny petitioner’s application for release and ‘that there was no showing of irrationality bordering on impropriety,'” it said.
Another parole hearing this month
It’s unclear how long Shrubsall will remain incarcerated. If his parole hearing later this month results in him not being released, his conditional release date is June 2027.
Shrubsall’s long criminal history dates back to his teenage years.
In 1988, at age 17, he beat his mother to death with a baseball bat on the night before his high school graduation in Niagara Falls, where he was to be the valedictorian. He ended up serving 16 months.
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