Hitchhiker sentenced to one day in jail for 2001 B.C. manslaughter

The moon rises over mountains along the Alaska Highway heading west to Whitehorse in the Yukon on March 4, 2007. (The Canadian Press/Chuck Stoody)

A man who admitted to killing the person who picked him up while he was hitchhiking on the Alaska Highway decades ago has been sentenced to one day in jail after a B.C. judge weighed the “unique circumstances” of the case.

James Daniel Morgan pleaded guilty to manslaughter and his sentence was handed down in B.C. Supreme Court earlier this month, according to a recently published decision.

The court heard that Morgan, a U.S. citizen and convicted felon, was picked up by James Curtis Hamrick on Sept. 8, 2001.

“The two men crossed into the Yukon Territory together and eventually entered into British Columbia,” Justice Ronald Tindale wrote in his sentencing decision.

Two days later, at a rest stop, Morgan assaulted Hamrick in what the judge described as a brutal and unprovoked attack on a defenceless victim.

“Mr. Morgan assaulted Mr. Hamrick with two hammers and a canister of bear spray. Mr. Morgan struck Mr. Hamrick multiple times in the head and sprayed him with the bear spray,” the decision said.

“After the assault, Mr. Hamrick was not yet deceased but he was fatally injured and Mr. Morgan dragged him a short distance off the pull out at the rest area and then fled the scene.”

Morgan left Hamrick’s trailer and dog in B.C.’s central Interior and drove his truck to Vancouver where he abandoned the vehicle before crossing the border using an alias, the court heard.

After liaising with U.S. authorities, homicide investigators travelled to California in 2002, where Morgan was in custody for violating his parole. After providing a DNA sample to police, Morgan was interviewed twice.

“During the first interview Mr. Morgan admitted to killing Mr. Hamrick; and then during a second interview by the investigators from British Columbia, Mr. Morgan confessed to murdering a man in Denver, Colorado, before he had left for Alaska and before he had killed Mr. Hamrick,” the decision said.

Morgan was convicted of murder in Colorado and handed a 48-year sentence in 2004, the judgment said.

In 2006, Morgan was extradited but officials did not seek his return to Canada to be prosecuted for Hamrick’s killing. The court heard that if Morgan been tried and convicted at that time, an eight-year sentence would have fit in the circumstances, according to the decision.

Given that the sentence would likely have been imposed concurrent to the much lengthier sentence for the Colorado murder, Crown and the defence argued it had effectively been served. Further, the court heard that the outstanding charge in Canada “negatively impacted” Morgan’s prospects of parole in Colorado, potentially resulting in his continued incarceration despite parole eligibility.

“It is likely Mr. Morgan will die before he finishes his sentence in Colorado,” the judge wrote.

The one-day jail sentence, which was proposed by Crown and the defence, was therefore judged to be fit “based on the unique circumstances” of the case.

Hamrick’s daughter read a victim impact statement during the sentencing process, emphasizing the ongoing impact of Morgan’s crime despite the passage of time.

“The impact of this crime is permanent. Our family lives with profound grief and trauma every day,” the judge wrote, quoting from the impact statement.