R v Williams

• Jurisdiction: Jamaica
• Court: Court of Appeal (Jamaica)
• Judge: Rowe, P.
• Judgment Date: 02 February 1993
• Neutral Citation: JM 1993 CA 5
• Docket Number: Criminal Appeal No. 65 of 1991
• Date: 02 February 1993

Court of Appeal

Rowe, P.; Forte, J.A.; Gordon, J.A

Criminal Appeal No. 65 of 1991

R

and

Williams

Appearances:

Miss Antoinette Haughton for applicant

Kent Pantry, Senior Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions for crown

Criminal law - Appeal against conviction — Murder — Capital murder — Trial judge erred by admitting into evidence a firearm — Witnesses' credibility attacked — Conspiracy — Issue of identification — Offence Against the Person Act (Amend) 1992, ss. 2(1)(a)(i) and 2(1)(d)(i) — Leave to appeal refused — Conviction stands.

Rowe, P.

1 Police Constables Seymour Cornwall and Clive Lawrence were passengers in an Encava motorbus plying the No. 13 route along Maxfield Avenue, Lyndhurst Road and Slipe Pen Road at about 10 p.m. on January 30, 1990. Another police constable, Hamlet Williams was also a passenger on that bus. He was shot and killed by a man who had immediately before robbed the conductor of money and who robbed the injured Hamlet Williams of his service revolver. Constables Cornwall and Lawrence gave evidence that the applicant was the person who committed the murder, of which he was convicted before Cooke, J. and a jury in the Home Circuit Court and sentenced to death.

2 Miss Haughton challenges the correctness of this conviction on the ground that the learned trial judge erred in law by admitting into evidence a firearm which it was alleged was taken from the applicant on 31st January 1990 during a shoot-out between himself and the police.

3 The vanguard questions to Constable Cornwall by defence counsel who appeared at the trial was that the applicant was shot and injured by a police party on January 31, 1990 in circumstances where the applicant was unarmed and had adopted a posture of complete surrender by lifting his arms in the air. it was further suggested that the applicant was unarmed and consequently no firearm was or could have been taken from him. Indeed the suggestions went further to include one that Constable Cornwall was not a witness to the shooting on the 30th in the motorbus nor to the incident which occurred at the corner of Princess Street and Charles Street on the following day in which the applicant was shot and wounded. Constable Cornwall denied all these suggestions.

4 Constable Cornwall's credit was attacked by a series of questions and suggestions to the effect that he had been suborned by other policemen, who had malice against the applicant and had shot him without justification, to manufacture the evidence as to the applicant's presence and activities on the No. 13 bus on the previous night. Again all these allegations and suggestions were denied by Constable Cornwall.

5 The prosecution sought and obtained the court's permission to exhibit a firearm which Constable Cornwall alleged...