THE COURT of Appeal has found that the evidence of identification in the case of 25-year-old Maurice Rhule, butcher of 58 Job Lane, Spanish Town, St. Catherine, was too weak to substantiate his conviction and six-year prison sentence for wounding with intent and the illegal possession of a firearm.
Rhule was freed on Thursday after the court upheld legal arguments from attorney-at-law Jacqueline Samuels-Brown that the identification was one of a fleeting glance made under difficult circumstances.
She said the complainant had only seen his assailants for a few seconds on the night of November 1, 2000. She also argued that the judge misdirected himself on the issue of identification and Rhule should have been freed on the no case submission which was made at the trial.
The complainant had testified at the trial before Mr. Justice Howard Cooke in February last year that about 8:00 p.m. on November 1, 2000, Rhule and a male relative went to his house. The male relative called his name and said he had come to kill him. He peeped through a small opening in the door and saw Rhule and the other man. He said the other man fired three shots, one of which caught him in the abdomen. He made a report to the police. On May 9, 2001, he had a dispute with Rhule and had to defend himself.
Rule said he knew nothing about the incident on November 1, 2000. He said on May 9, 2001, he was on his way home from work when the complainant and another man attacked him in Spanish Town. He was injured and had to be hospitalised and it was then that he was arrested and charged.
Rhule's convictions and sentences were set aside and a verdict of acquittal was entered.
