Jeevan A. Robinson
Thursday, November 27, 2014
On Tuesday November 25, 2014, the Court of Appeal on Montserrat reversed the murder conviction of Mr Orin Evans and also set aside his 35 year jail term.
Mr Evans was convicted in November 2013 for the murder of Mr Aubrey Barry after an altercation with the deceased. Evans claims that Mr Barry had entered his home uninvited and thus, he Evans had no choice but to have defended himself.
David S Brandt represented Mr Evans at the Court of Appeal and argued that the “learned Trial Judge misdirected the jury in that he failed to tell them that since the issue of self defence was raised, the burden of negating it rested on the prosecution and His Lordship failed to follow the guidelines set out in R v. Abraham 57 Cr. App. R. 799.
Brandt also argued that in that case, the Learned Judge in the Court of Appeal stated that a trial judge when summing up should deal with the issue of self defence as follows:-
“Give a clear....... general direction as to the onus of proof; then immediately follow with a direction that in the circumstances of the particular case there is a special reason for having in mind how the onus and standard of proof applies and go to deal....... for example with the issue of self defence by telling the jury , something along these lines: Members of the jury, the general direction which I have just given to you in relation to onus and standard of proof has an important operation in the circumstances of the present case. Here the accused has raised the issue that he acted in self defence. A person who acts reasonably in self defence commits no unlawful act. By his plea of self defence the accused is raising in a special form the plea of not guilty. Since it is for the Crown to show that the plea of not guilty is unacceptable, so the crown must convince you beyond reasonable doubt that self defence has no basis in the present case. Having done so the trial judge can then proceed to deal with the facts of the particular case. The last thing I want to do is to lend support to the misconception that any prescribed words have to be used in giving the directions.”
It was those guidelines that Attorney Brandt stated the trial judge which was Justice Redhead, failed to follow.
Additional arguments presented by Mr Brandt included that of him presenting to the Court that Justice Redhead did not direct the jury that “once the issue of self defence was raised that the onus remained throughout on the prosecution to satisfy them that he was not acting in self defense; and if they were left in doubt whether the killing may or may not have been done in self defense the proper verdict would have been not guilty.”
Furthermore, it was argued to the Court of Appeal that Justice Redhead had failed to explain “that if the Defendant honestly believed that he needed to act as he did, even though he was mistaken then he should have been found not guilty.”
Thus, by these omissions by Justice Redhead, Attorney Brandt presented to the Appeal Court, on behalf of his client, that there was a real risk that the jury would have concluded that Mr Evans had to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he acted in self defence.
The importance of this was additionally further brought to bare by the fact that the law gives Mr Evans the right to give an unsworn statement from the dock and that if he exercised that right, they, the jury, must not draw any adverse conclusion from that.
In light of the jury having not been given proper directions, the court terminated Mr Evans’ murder conviction and have ordered a retrial of the case.
Mr. Evans remains in Prison whilst he awaits his next court date.
