The Tribune

By FARRAH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

fjohnson@tribunemedia.net

THE Court of Appeal yesterday quashed the three-year prison sentence imposed on a senior citizen who was resentenced after prosecutors appealed the $15,500 fine he was initially made to pay when he was convicted of a number of firearm and drug related offences last year.

Now, 68-year-old Pericles Anthony Maillis of Abaco will only serve one year in prison, minus the time he has already spent on remand.

Maillis was arrested in August 2020, after officers found 75 potted plants of marijuana, a sawn-off shotgun, three firearms, ammunition and a jar of suspected marijuana in his Abaco home.

He pleaded guilty to three counts of possession of an unlicensed firearm and one count each of possession of an unlicensed shotgun, possession of ammunition with intent to supply, possession of ammunition, cultivation of dangerous drugs and possession of dangerous drugs with intent to supply when he was arraigned in a Magistrate’s Court.

At the time, he was spared a prison sentence and instead fined just over $15,000 after he explained that two of the firearms were antiques from WWII and the Vietnam War and added that he used his shotgun for protection after his house was broken into. Mailis also claimed he became depressed after Hurricane Dorian and grew the marijuana for his personal use since marijuana tea helped to calm him down.

However, the Department of Public Prosecutions later appealed Maillis’ punishment after arguing it was too lenient for the offences he committed. The appeal was successful and the Court of Appeal ordered Maillis to be resentenced in May.

When he was, the magistrate resentenced him to three years imprisonment for the firearm offences and two years imprisonment for the drug charges. Maillis later appealed those sentences on the ground that they were “unduly severe”.

Yesterday, Justices Sir Michael Barnett, Jon Isaacs and Maureen Crane-Scott quashed the sentences and substituted them with a term of one year in prison.

In their judgment, delivered by Sir Michael, the panel said it was not clear what caused the magistrate not to use the amount of mercy she thought was “appropriate” when she first sentenced Maillis.

“In the DPP’s appeal this court allowed the appeal on the basis that the sentences imposed by the magistrate were wrong in principle after a review of the Firearms Act and its amendments revealed that the magistrate had no jurisdiction to impose a fine instead of a custodial sentence relative to the offences against the Firearms Act,” Sir Michael said.

“The court did not criticise the magistrate’s decision to temper justice with mercy in what she found was an exceptional case. Between the magistrate’s sentencing of the appellant there was no change in the circumstances of the offence or of the offender. The magistrate’s initial sentence evidenced her view that a non-custodial sentence, and a one year term of imprisonment in default, met the justice of this case.

“It is unclear what caused the magistrate to dispense with the degree of mercy she thought appropriate upon her initial sentencing of the appellant.”

In his dissenting view, Justice Isaacs said he believed the panel should not interfere with the sentence imposed by a lower court “merely on the basis that it would have imposed a different sentence.”

Nevertheless, Sir Michael noted that Maillis was a senior citizen who pleaded guilty at his earliest opportunity. He also said he considered the fact that the appellant was also a man of “good character” who had “expressed remorse” for his actions.

He said in view of the facts of the case, the two-year sentence imposed fell “outside the range of sentences which the sentencing magistrate, applying her mind to all the relevant factors, and having regard to like cases, could reasonably consider appropriate.”

“For all of the above reasons I would allow the appeal, quash the three-year sentences imposed by the magistrate for the offences against the Firearms Act and the two-year sentences imposed for the offences against the Dangerous Drugs Act, and in the exceptional circumstances of this case substitute a sentence of one year on each count to run concurrently. The sentences are to run from May 20, 2021 which is the date that the appellant was remanded into custody.”