A JUDGE'S misdirection to the jury in a murder case has resulted in the Court of Appeal ordering a re-trial for a man who was convicted of non-capital murder.
The re-trial was ordered for Milton Lee, a farmer of Lennox, Portland, who was represented on appeal by Attorney-at-law Alonzo Manning.
It was argued on appeal that the judge's summing up was defective, particularly in relation to self defence.
Lee was convicted on November 31 last year of the murder of Beswick Williams otherwise called Buggy, a 42-year-old farmer also of Lennox, Portland. Williams died after he was chopped several times with a machete on July 30, 1998.
In an unsworn statement from the dock, Lee told the jury that he acted in self defence.
He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment but Mr. Justice Ellis recommended that he should serve 12 years before he was eligible for parole.
The Court of Appeal, comprising the Hon. Ian Forte, President of the Court of Appeal, Mr. Justice Donald Bingham and Mr. Justice Clarence Walker, held that the judge's direction on self defence was deficient because he only gave the jury some aspects of self defence. The court said in their opinion, the directions did nothing more than to confuse the jury.
It was the court's finding that the judge was correct when he told the jury that the unsworn statement was not evidence but he ought to have reminded the jury as to what Lee had said in the unsworn statement. The court said the judge blundered in the summing up because there was lack of reference to the unsworn statement.
Crown Counsel Terry Lawrence had asked the court not to disturb the conviction but to apply the proviso based on the evidence presented in court. The court in disagreeing with the submission, said "we cannot say a jury properly directed would necessarily come to the decision that they did."
The Court in allowing the appeal, quashed the conviction and sentence. The court said that in the interest of justice, a new trial was ordered.
