Detective killers to get hearing
Published:Friday | December 24, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
TWO MEN who were sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Detective Sergeant Maurice Shirley are to get a sentencing hearing.
The Court of Appeal upheld submissions from defence lawyers Ravil Golding and Donald Bryan and agreed that the sentencing guidelines laid down by the United Kingdom Privy Council were not followed in the men's case.
The lawyers said the men were convicted of killing a member of the security forces which could have attracted the death penalty.
A sentencing hearing should have been held before labourers 28-year-old Wayne Morris and 25-year-old Dean Reid, both of March Pen Road, St Catherine, were sentenced, the lawyers submitted.
The policeman was shot in a bar in Spanish Town, St Catherine, in April 2000.
Morris and Reid were convicted in March 2008 in the Home Circuit Court. They were each sentenced to life imprisonment and ordered to serve 35 years before parole.
Appeal dismissed
The Court of Appeal dismissed their appeal against convictions, but upheld the submissions on the sentencing hearing.
It was the court's ruling that a social enquiry, psychiatric, psychology and other reports should have been made available to the judge before the men were sentenced.
The court said all the judge had before him was the antecedents of the men.
According to the court, "We do agree with Mr Bryan when he submitted that an antecedent report is helpful, but was insufficient in a case where the death sentence is an option since it did not speak to such things as the prisoner's prospect for reform or the factors that might have influenced the prisoner to commit the murder."
It added: "The need for these reports was brought home quite forcefully when Mr Lloyd McFarlane, who appeared on behalf of the applicant Reid below, did point out to the learned judge that Reid had undergone psychiatric evaluations prior to the trial of this matter and was diagnosed as being psychotic. We do believe that even at this stage of the proceedings, the learned judge ought to have adjourned the matter so that steps could be taken for a psychiatric report to be filed since Mr McFarlane was most incapable of providing any form of expert evidence."
The court set aside the sentences and ordered that a proper sentencing hearing must be carried out as early as possible.