Rayon Williams v R
| Jurisdiction | Jamaica |
| Judge | Dunbar-Green JA,Brown JA |
| Judgment Date | 19 November 2022 |
| Neutral Citation | JM 2022 CA 90 |
| Docket Number | SUPREME COURT CRIMINAL APPEAL NO 61/2014 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Jamaica) |
| Year | 2022 |
[2022] JMCA Crim 41
THE HON Mr Justice Brooks P
THE HON Mrs Justice Dunbar-Green JA
THE HON Mr Justice Brown JA (AG)
SUPREME COURT CRIMINAL APPEAL NO 61/2014
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
John Clarke for the appellant
Miss Paula Llewellyn QC, Director of Public Prosecutions, Miss Tamara Merchant, Miss Camelia Larmond and Miss Cindi-Kay Graham for the Crown
Dunbar-Green JA AND Brown JA (AG)
This is the judgment of the court.
Rayon Williams (‘the appellant’) was convicted on 19 June 2014 of murder before McDonald-Bishop J (as she then was), sitting with an 11-member jury (one juror was discharged during the first day of the trial), at the end of a trial which lasted four days. On 26 June 2014, he was sentenced to imprisonment for life at hard labour, with the stipulation that he serves 50 years' imprisonment before becoming eligible for parole. It was further ordered that this sentence should run concurrently with the sentence he was then serving. His application for leave to appeal both his conviction and sentence was considered by a single judge of this court on 8 January 2018. The single judge refused leave to appeal his conviction but granted leave to appeal his sentence. Since he was granted leave to appeal his sentence, he will be referred to as the appellant below, in relation to both his conviction and sentence.
As is the appellant's right, he now renews his application for leave to appeal his conviction before the court. The challenge to his conviction rests on the success of his application to adduce fresh evidence which was filed on 6 December 2018, as well as on grounds one, two and three of the supplemental grounds of appeal. His application to adduce fresh evidence is supported by evidence on affidavits and oral evidence of both ordinary and expert witnesses. Before addressing the application to adduce fresh evidence and the grounds of appeal, it is appropriate to provide the background which formed the basis of the appellant's conviction and sentence.
On 18 December 2010 at about 10:10 pm, Geraldo Campbell was shot and injured in a shop on Oxford Road, Spanish Town in the parish of Saint Catherine. He was taken to the Spanish Town Hospital where he died while undergoing treatment. The principal witness for the prosecution was Miss Sharon Moore (‘Miss Moore’), the appellant's maternal aunt. Consequently, it was accepted at the trial that the appellant and Miss Moore were well-known to each other. Indeed, the appellant's defence partially turned on this very fact. Miss Moore had known him since he was born and she thought him to be about 25 years of age at the time of the trial. She had last seen him the day before the incident and they spoke then.
At the time of the incident, Miss Moore was standing on Oxford Road, in the vicinity of the probation office, selling Christmas lights. She had a shop in the nearby Redemption Ground Arcade (‘the arcade’) although she was plying her wares on the road. Open for business at this time was a shop that Miss Moore referred to as “Mr Charlie shop”. Mr Charlie's shop was located in the vicinity of the probation office, which was closed. According to her, Mr Charlie's shop was “right in front of the probation [office]” where she was standing. That is, across the road from where she was. There was electric light burning both on the inside and the outside of Mr Charlie's shop. In addition, the area was well-lit with street lights.
While standing there, Miss Moore observed the appellant and another man, known to her only as Maragh, approaching on foot from a distance of about 40 feet. Maragh stopped at a record shop, about 12 feet from Mr Charlie's shop, while the appellant walked to Mr Charlie's shop. Miss Moore was then about 15 or 16 feet away from the appellant. She was able to see his face, both while he was at Mr Charlie's shop and when he was 40 feet away. She never lost sight of the appellant and Maragh from the first time she saw them. Further, it took the appellant about five minutes to traverse the distance to Mr Charlie's shop from where Miss Moore first saw him. Nothing blocked her view of the appellant as he walked this distance. The appellant was not wearing any headgear or anything on his face.
After the appellant reached the doorway of Mr Charlie's shop, he pulled a firearm from the front of his pants waist, held it downwards and looked around inside the shop. The appellant then, pushed his hand with the firearm inside Mr Charlie's shop and Miss Moore heard two explosions, sounding like gunshots.
After Miss Moore heard these explosions, she saw a man fall across the doorway of Mr Charlie's shop. The appellant then walked to where Maragh was and both left the scene together. Miss Moore also left the scene. She walked to the arcade and sat inside her shop.
While inside the shop Miss Moore heard screams. She left her shop and returned to the scene of the shooting. Lying across the doorway of Mr Charlie's shop was Al, a male she had known for about eight years. Al was lying in a pool of blood. She also knew Al's mother, “Miss Faith”, and where both lived.
Miss Moore said she called “Al” by his name and he shook his head. Miss Moore left the immediate vicinity and stood nearby. She observed the injured man being placed in a motor car which drove away from the scene. The police arrived on the scene sometime after and cordoned off the area. It was only after the police left that Miss Moore again left the scene.
The following day Miss Moore visited Miss Faith. After visiting Miss Faith, Miss Moore went to the police station and made a report. At the trial, all Miss Moore's assertions about being an eyewitness to the murder were squarely challenged. In essence, the suggestions to her were that her evidence was a fabrication and she was motivated by ill-will to testify falsely against the appellant.
The appellant gave an unsworn statement and called one witness. The appellant said that Miss Moore accused him of stealing a gun from her. She asked him about the gun and he told her he knew nothing about it. Miss Moore responded that “she a goh fuck mi up”. The appellant said Miss Moore complained to his mother, Mrs Claudette Williams (‘Mrs Williams’), about the gun and he confronted Miss Moore since he had already told her, Miss Moore, that he did not have any gun for her. The next day, Steve, the father of Miss Moore's daughter, chased the appellant with a cutlass (machete). The appellant took up two stones, one of which he threw at Steve. Steve was later restrained by persons present.
According to the appellant, while this was happening, Miss Moore's daughter was passing. The daughter exposed herself to the appellant and told him to suck a delicate part of her anatomy. She then ran off. The following morning the appellant saw Miss Moore's daughter and flogged her with his belt, apparently for her earlier indiscretion. After that, the appellant said, Miss Moore told him if she did not make him get 50 years' imprisonment, she would get a man to kill him.
The appellant said Miss Moore and Steve had a problem because of the missing gun. According to the appellant, a sum of money was owed on the gun and Miss Moore's car was seized as a result. From what the appellant said, apparently the gun had been the subject of a sort of hire purchase arrangement, and its return was being required as Miss Moore could not complete the payments. Following on this seizure of the motor car, the appellant said he was accosted by one of two men to whom Miss Moore had given his name. That man inflicted a wound on the appellant's forehead when the appellant told him that, he knew nothing about the gun.
Mrs Williams, the appellant's mother, testified on his behalf. Mrs Williams' evidence was that on the night of the incident she was inside Miss Moore's shop at the arcade. Miss Moore asked her to get cigarettes. Mrs Williams left to her shop, about 25 feet away, to get the cigarettes. About the time Mrs Williams reached her own shop in the arcade, she heard the sound of two or three gunshots. Mrs Williams ran back to Miss Moore's shop. Reaching there, Mrs Williams addressed Miss Moore in these words, “Sharon sound like somebody dead ‘round there soh”. Miss Moore responded that Mrs Williams frightened her as she, Miss Moore, was led to think something had happened to Rayon.
Both of them left to Mr Charlie's shop. Upon arrival at Mr Charlie's shop, in the testimony of Mrs Williams, Miss Moore turned over the man, who appeared to be dead, and said “Claudette a Al, yuh nuh”. Both women then walked back to Claudette Moore's shop. Miss Moore was crying uncontrollably, saying she remembered her two sons (Orville Haynes and Kirk Haynes) that were killed by the police. Miss Moore cried until she urinated on herself. According to Mrs Williams, Miss Moore said it was she, Mrs Williams, who had caused the deaths of her sons and if her sons could have died, anybody else's son could die.
Mrs Williams related that “months” before the incident at Mr Charlie's shop, Miss Moore had asked her to inquire of the appellant whether he had taken her gun. Mrs Williams said she did as Miss Moore had requested. Asked whether the appellant seemed pleased or vexed when she made that inquiry of him, Mrs Williams said no but added that the appellant never liked the idea.
Mrs Williams also supported the appellant's unsworn statement that he was chased by Steve with a machete, and his account concerning the incident between him and Miss Moore's daughter. After the incident with Steve, Miss Moore and the appellant did not have a harmonious relationship. Mrs Williams' account was challenged through suggestions put to her by the prosecutor, all of which she denied.
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