The Tribune

By FARRAH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

fjohnson@tribunemedia.net

A MAN, convicted of murdering one man and attempting to kill two others, had his 58-year prison sentence overturned in the appellate court recently.

In April 2016, Deiondre Demeritte was accused of fatally shooting Calvin Thompson. He was also accused of wounding the victim’s cousin and a “lady friend” during the incident.

Two years later, Demeritte was convicted of one count of murder and two counts of attempted murder and was sentenced to 58 years for murder and 28 years for each count of attempted murder. All of the sentences were ordered to run concurrently from the date of his conviction.

Within days of being sentenced, the appellant filed a notice of appeal. In his re-amended grounds of appeal that was filed at a later date, he argued the judge’s decision to reject his no-case submission was “erroneous”.

He further contended the judge’s directions on inconsistencies and discrepancies were insufficient which made the jury’s verdicts in his matter unsafe.

On Wednesday, Court of Appeal Justices Jon Isaacs, Maureen Crane-Scott and Roy Jones quashed Demeritte’s sentences and convictions. They also said they would hear from both Crown and Defence counsel to determine whether would be appropriate to order a retrial for the case.

While the panel said the learned judge was correct to reject Demeritte’s no-case submission, they ruled his directions during the course of the proceedings were “deficient”.

In their judgment, the panel noted: “While the jury were given the customary directions on the various matters which might affect the testimony of witnesses, they were not given the usual direction as to what the judge meant by an inconsistency or a discrepancy; nor were they told that it is not unusual to find inconsistencies or discrepancies in the evidence and that they may arise for any number of reasons and that they may not necessarily mean that a witness is lying.

“It is evident that the judge’s directions were deficient in that not only were both terms used interchangeably by the judge himself, but neither term was properly explained, and ultimately, the jury was left with little guidance as to how they would begin their task of identifying an inconsistency or a discrepancy in the evidence if such had indeed arisen.”

Justice Crane-Scott, who delivered the judment, said no part of the general direction on inconsistencies and discrepancies suggested that a jury could be instructed to set aside a piece of evidence that they may have doubts on, if one witness said something to cause them to doubt the testimony of another witness.

“Such an instruction would clearly be erroneous in law because it is not for the judge, but for the jury (as judges of the true facts in a criminal case) to determine for themselves what they make of any inconsistencies or discrepancies they find to have arisen, and to decide what evidence they reject or accept as true,” she stated.

“To the extent that the judge’s direction erroneously infringed that basic principle, it was a misdirection and wrong in law. Given the many material inconsistencies and discrepancies which arose on the evidence and given the misdirections of law and inadequacies in the judge’s summing-up which we have highlighted, we have serious reservations about the safety of the jury’s verdicts which we find to be unsafe and unsatisfactory.”