By Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterTHE UNITED Kingdom Privy Council has set aside the capital murder convictions of the two men who were convicted in March 2000 of the fatal shooting of Detective Corporal George Dewar because of misdirections by the trial judge.
Marlon Moodie, 28, who was sentenced to hang and Andrew Hunter, who was 15 years old at the time of his conviction, both had non-capital murder convictions substituted by the Privy Council.
The policeman was shot on November 5, 1998 while on patrol in McIntyre Villa, also known as Dunkirk, in east Kingston.
Moodie was sentenced by Mr. Justice Algie Smith to hang for the crime while Hunter, also called 'Henkel', was ordered detained at the Governor-General's pleasure because he was 15 years old when the murder was committed.
When the men appealed against their convictions and sentences, the Court of Appeal dismissed Moodie's appeal. The court varied Hunter's sentence to one of life imprisonment with a recommendation that he should not be considered for parole until he had served a period of 20 years.
The men appealed to the Privy Council which held in July this year that their capital murder convictions should be quashed and convictions for non-capital murder substituted. The Privy Council sent back the case for the Court of Appeal to determine the number of years they should serve before they are eligible for parole.
MIXED STATEMENTS
"Their Lordships consider that the trial judge was wrong to deprive the jury of the opportunity of considering whether in the light of mixed statements, the Crown had proved in the case of each appellant that the 'trigger man' test was satisfied," the Privy Council ruled.
"He ought to have directed the jury to consider this question, and to have left with them the alternative verdict that the appellants were guilty of non-capital murder which would have been open to them on the evidence if they were satisfied that the appellants were acting in pursuance of a joint enterprise. They were, of course, left with the alternative verdict of not guilty," the Privy Council said in its written reason on October 8.
'TEST'
It said further that the case for setting aside the verdicts of capital murder was made even stronger by the confused and misleading way in which the trial judge dealt with the issue of joint enterprise.
The 'trigger man test' applies only to the person who actually commits the act of violence on the victim and therefore would be guilty of capital murder, which attracts the death sentence.
