The Tribune

By FARRAH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

fjohnson@tribunemedia.net

A MAN who was convicted of shooting and killing another man in 2013 had his 30-year sentence overturned in the Court of Appeal yesterday.

In the early morning hours of July 22, 2013, a lone gunman shot and killed Torack Stuart as he was getting into the driver’s seat of his vehicle which had been parked near a club on East Bay Street.

According to court documents, the gunman also pointed his firearm at Stuart’s girlfriend who was seated in the front passenger seat of the vehicle; however, the gun jammed and the gunman ran off.

During the trial, the woman testified that the gunman who had shot Stuart and attempted to shoot at her had been wearing a baby blue shirt.

Although four people witnessed the incident, the only positive identification evidence came from a police witness who chased and caught up with a man clad in a yellow shirt and khaki pants – Charlvin Laramore – who he said he saw shoot at Stuart.

The evidence revealed that during the chase, the witness lost sight of the gunman briefly, but shortly thereafter came across two men hiding against the wall at the entrance to a nearby restaurant. The man who was wearing the yellow shirt and khaki pants was breathing heavily and sweating profusely. When the officer asked the men why they were in the area and who they were hiding from, they said they had heard fellows were shooting and they were scared.

“The witness said that a bystander then pointed at the male in the yellow shirt and said: ‘That’s the male right there’,” the court documents noted.

“At that point, he placed the man in handcuffs, cautioned him and arrested him in connection with the shooting. Both men were then transported to the Central Police Station where a name check was done and they were released from custody. A search of the area was conducted for weapons, but nothing (was) found.

“Approximately one month later, the witness attended an ID parade where he picked out the intended appellant as the man he had detained following the shooting incident on July 22, 2013. The intended appellant was subsequently charged with murdering the deceased and the attempted murder of the front seat passenger.”

In 2016, the jury acquitted Laramore of attempted murder, but convicted him of the murder of Stuart. He was subsequently sentenced to 30 years imprisonment with effect from the date he was found guilty.

He sought leave to appeal his conviction out of time on the grounds that the “quality of the identification evidence linking him to the offences was so poor and tenuous that the judge ought to have withdrawn the case from the jury and directed an acquittal”.

In a judgement posted to the Court of Appeal’s website yesterday, the appellate panel of justices allowed his appeal and quashed his murder conviction after ruling they had “serious reservations” about the safety of the intended appellant’s conviction.

In their judgement, delivered by Justice Maureen Crane-Scott, the panel said it was evident the learned judge rejected the no-case submission because she believed the Crown had “adduced evidence for the jury’s consideration in relation to both counts”.

She also said it was a case where the visual identification evidence of Laramore as the gunman by the police officer “left a lot to be desired”, which meant the judge had “a further duty... to satisfy herself that the identifying evidence was actually sufficient to sustain a proper conviction”.

“We have serious reservations about the safety of the intended appellant’s conviction which we find to be unsafe and unsatisfactory,” she said.

“There is no doubt that a miscarriage of justice has occurred. Further, it is impossible for the proviso to be applied as we are satisfied that given the vague and tenuous nature of the identification evidence the case ought never to have been sent for the jury’s consideration.

“For all the foregoing reasons, we have acceded to the application for an extension of time. Having also considered the merits of the appeal, we allow the appeal and quash the appellant’s conviction for murder along with the associated sentence. Having regard to the unsatisfactory state of the identification evidence, which will remain the same, we do not consider it in the interests of justice to order a retrial.”