The 60-day weekends-only jail sentence a woman received for drunk and dangerous driving was not unfit, the Yukon Court of Appeal has decided.

After a Jan. 5 hearing in Vancouver, the three-judge panel dismissed the Crown’s appeal.

The judges agreed that Teri Lynn Schinkel’s intermittent sentence – plus two years of probation and a one-year driving ban – appropriately addressed both denunciation and rehabilitation.

“I conclude the judge imposed thoughtful, balanced sentences that addressed the fundamental principle that a sentence must be proportionate to the offence and to the offender’s moral culpability,” wrote Justice Anne MacKenzie.

Schinkel pleaded guilty to impaired driving causing bodily harm; dangerous driving causing bodily harm; and refusing to provide a breath sample last May.

The offences occurred in February 2014, when Schinkel’s ex-boyfriend assaulted her at a house party in Whitehorse, then left without his coat. Very intoxicated, she decided to drive around the city to find him and give it to him.

Witnesses who saw her swerving violently all over the road followed her and called 911.

They reported seeing her hit another vehicle and keep driving.

Schinkel located her ex-boyfriend at some point, and he got into the car and assaulted her, then took off again.

She resumed driving, for a “considerable period of time” along a busy part of the Alaska Highway in Whitehorse, Judge E. Dennis Schmidt wrote in his sentencing decision last August.

“She was all over the road; driving with one flat tire; at high speeds, 130 to 140 kilometres per hour; in the wrong lane; going through stop signs; and hitting medians,” he wrote.

Eventually, she hit another car with enough force that it was pushed off the road, across a median and over a bank. The 16-year-old driver of that car was injured “fairly badly.”

The appeal court judges elaborated on this in their decision: the teen sustained a “severe” head injury, with 15 stitches needed to close up the laceration, whiplash and bruising.

The Crown had sought a six-month sentence, reduced from nine months after the consideration of Gladue factors, as Schinkel is aboriginal.

Prosecutor Noel Sinclair argued Schmidt’s sentence, outside of the normal range for similar offences, was “demonstrably unfit.”

But the appeal court judges disagreed.

“(A)lthough the sentences are below the ordinary range for these offences, they were fit for this particular aboriginal offender,” MacKenzie wrote.

She said the Crown failed to recognize the “high degree of deference” appeal courts give a sentencing judge, as well as the significance of Gladue factors.

“I consider the (sentencing) judge’s discussions of Gladue reflected he was alive to its principles,” MacKenzie wrote.

“While considering the Gladue factors, he recognized a proportionate sentence required that deterrence and denunciation be properly addressed, given the nature and seriousness of the offences.”

At the sentencing hearing, details of Schinkel’s background were revealed.

She suffered abuse and neglect early in her life. A third-generation residential school survivor, she began living the same drug- and alcohol-addicted lifestyle she’s seen in her family.

She said this incident was a turning point in her life – she expressed remorse for what she’d done and said she wanted to get her life back on track to care properly for her son.

The appeal court heard that Schinkel completed her jail sentence at the end of October 2014, after having served 10 consecutive weekends, and has been doing well on probation.

Schinkel has been accepted into a program at Yukon College, remains an outpatient with Alcohol and Drug Services which provides counselling, and attends Alcoholics Anonymous sessions.

The Gladue provision of the Criminal Code states that all other options besides jail “that are reasonable given the circumstances” should be considered, particularly for aboriginal offenders.

This has been described as a remedial provision, in place to address the overrepresentation of aboriginal people in Canadian prisons.