By Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterERROL SMITH, 34, who was sentenced to life for the murder of Roy Prince, a carpenter, lost his appeal against that conviction yesterday.
The court ordered that his sentence commence as at July 4, 2001.
Smith, a security guard, who claimed he shot and killed Mr. Prince in self-defence when he was attacked at a friend's house in Jacks Hill , St. Andrew was convicted in the Home Circuit Court on April 4, 2001.
Smith was charged jointly with Paulette Wallace at whose house, situated at 2 Rhoden Close, Jacks Hill, Prince was fatally shot on May 3, 1994. Wallace was freed by the jury.
Citizens discovered Prince's body lying on the roadside in the vicinity of Tavistock Terrace and Rhoden Close, St. Andrew at about 5 a.m. on May 3, 1994. The body had a gunshot wound in the region of the left breast. The police were called and they found bloodstains on a track leading from the roadway to the one-bedroom board house where Wallace lived. Bloodstains were also seen in the house and yard.
The Crown's case was that Smith shot Prince while he was inside Wallace's house. A policeman testified that he visited the crime scene and entered Wallace's house and saw a pool of blood on the floor immediately before the door. Bloodstains were also found in the yard and on a track which led to where the body was found.
HIS DEFENCE
Smith said in his defence that he visited Wallace during the night of the incident. He knocked on her door and got no response. He was urinating in the yard when Prince attacked him with a machete. In order to defend himself he pulled his licensed firearm and shot Prince in lawful self-defence.
Smith was found guilty of non-capital murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. He appealed against his conviction and sentence on the ground that there was a breach of his constitutional right because there was a delay of seven years after his arrest before his trial took place.
The Court of Appeal comprising the President of the Court of Appeal the Hon. Ian Forte, Mr. Justice Algernon Smith and Mr. Justice Karl Harrison (acting) held that Smith's constitutional rights were not breached by the long delay in having his case tried.
Dennis Daly, Q.C., who represented Smith on appeal, argued also that the judge erred in his directions to the jury on self-defence.
The Appeal Court said the judge could not be faulted in his directions on self-defence. Defence lawyers also argued that provocation should have been left to the jury so that the verdict could be one of manslaughter.
