A Yukon Supreme Court judge has handed down stiffer penalties to three impaired drivers from Carcross who initially faced lighter punishment.

Brian Schaub, Laurie Patterson and Daisy Gatensby all saw harsher sentences imposed following this week's successful appeal by the Crown of a trial judge's decision last year.

That judge had ignored the joint submission from the Crown and defence, which recommended more than the $1,000 fine and 12-month driving ban handed down to all three offenders in September 2013.

Justice Sal LoVecchio upped the sentence to $1,500 and a 15-month prohibition across the board on Monday.

"The courts have consistently said the trial judge is bound by the joint submission” unless she can provide "salient reasons,” LoVecchio said.

"The question is, was the joint recommendation for the sentence unfit?”

The Crown successfully argued on appeal that it was not.

Crown lawyer Joanna Phillips said the "the learned sentencing judged erred in law” by adding no additional punishment for the drivers' extremely high blood-alcohol levels and by ignoring the Canadian Criminal Code's "principle of parity,” which states a sentence should fall within the range of those for "for similarly situated offenders and similar offences.”

All three drivers registered more than 160 milligrams of alcohol per millilitre of blood.

The Criminal Code states that readings above that number constitute aggravating circumstances and warrant stiffer penalties.

Two of the offenders hit more than three times the 80 milligrams — or .08 blood-alcohol level — that federal law defines as impaired driving.

Phillips took issue with the trial judge's line of logic. It had suggested that a higher blood-alcohol level did not warrant a higher penalty because the impaired driver's state of mind is cloudier than that of a person who gets behind the wheel only mildly drunk.

The drunker the driver, the less judgment he could exercise to restrain himself from driving, the reasoning went.

"The greater the impairment, the greater the need for severe sanctions,” Phillips stated.

"The readings were high and the offence took place in a small community. Imposing (only) the mandatory minimum in such a case is contrary to the public interest.”

LoVecchio also sided with the Crown's submission that the previous ruling was unfit because trial judge failed to lay out reasons for a sentence that deviated from the joint submission.

Last fall, the trial judge may have granted Schaub, 32, a shorter driving ban "because when I suspend your licence, you can't drive anymore and you'll get into a lot more serious trouble if you do,” Judge E. Dennis Schmidt told the offender.

Schaub, who had a small drywalling and taping business, needed his vehicle to haul supplies to job sites, his lawyer said.

Schaub, detained for drunk driving last June, has a short criminal record, having been convicted for theft in 2005.

Patterson, 36, was detained last May coming toward Carcross after an officer at a traffic stop detected "a strong smell of liquor coming from her,” Phillips stated.

Gatensby, 27, a Carcross resident who took a breathalyzer test during a traffic stop after leaving the 98 Hotel in Whitehorse, has no criminal record.