R v Miller

• Jurisdiction: Jamaica
• Court: Court of Appeal (Jamaica)
• Judge: Rowe, P.
• Judgment Date: 13 May 1987
• Neutral Citation: JM 1987 CA 34
• Docket Number: Criminal Appeal No. 33 of 1985
• Date: 13 May 1987

Court of Appeal

Rowe, P.; Campbell, J.A.; Bingham J.A. (Ag.)

Criminal Appeal No. 33 of 1985

R

and

Miller

Appearances

C.S. Miller and Nancy Anderson for the appellant.

John Moodie for the Crown.

Criminal law - Grievous bodily harm — Appeal against conviction — Counsel for appellant conceded that there was no ground on which to upset conviction — Injury extremely serious — Circumstances vicious — Appellant expressed intention to cause really serious injury to complainant — Sentence not manifestly excessive — Appeal dismissed.

Rowe, P.

1 The appellant Linton Miller was convicted before Cordon, J., and a jury in the St. Elizabeth Circuit Court on March 12th, 1985, of causing grievous bodily harm with intent to do grievous bodily harm and he was sentenced to six years imprisonment at hard labour. From this conviction and sentence he appeals and he is represented by Mr. Miller who this morning, having had a look at the summing-up, more than a look, having gone through it very carefully, has conceded that there is no ground on which the conviction could be upset. He has argued, however, that the sentence is excessive and ought to be reduced and he has suggested that the proper sentence that should be given is one which would terminate as at this time seeing that the appellant has been in prison for some two years and four months to date.

2 The circumstances which led to his conviction were that on the 30th October, 1983, the appellant and the complainant, one Hassan Simpson, were together at a domino game in St. Elizabeth. There arose a dispute between the men, there was a quarrel which was pacified and the appellant left the scene. Sometime after the other people including the complainant also left and they were ambushed by the appellant who used language — “You blood cloth you, a who you did a fuck round” — and with that he used a stone and delivered a blow to the right side of Simpson's head, a blow which the doctor said caused a laceration and inverted upside down L-shaped injury to the right side of the frontal parietal region of the skull with a depressed fracture below. He was rendered unconscious for some 24 hours. He underwent an operation and was treated in hospital for some two weeks. His treatment was continuing and since that occasion he had up to the time of trial four episodes of total unconsciousness. So it appears that whatever injury was done to his brain is a continuing he and certainly...