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Mar 15, 2018 News
Defence Attorney George Thomas has addressed the Court of Appeal on a number of points which he claims formed an erroneous basis on which his client, Tyrone Rowe called “Cobra“ was sentenced to 78 years in prison for murder.
In 2010, Rowe, 17 years old at the time, found himself on a list of Guyana’s most wanted. He was later charged for Troy Collymore’s murder and was accused of robbing Mark Hunte on May 16, 2010, of articles valued $160,000. A third charge had stated that Rowe, armed with a gun, robbed Troy Collins, of gold and diamond jewellery valued $1.4M.
In 2013, Rowe was sentenced to 78 years in prison by Justice Navindra Singh after he was convicted for murdering Troy Collymore called ‘Colly’ and ‘Nelly’ during the course of a felony.
His attorney, Hookumchand, at the time had appealed the severity of the sentence.
The attorney unfortunately died a few years after the matter concluded in the High Court.
Consequently, when the matter came up at the Appeal Court last month, Rowe was without legal representation. The Court therefore granted time for Rowe to acquire a lawyer, failing which, an attorney would be provided for him by the State.
Appearing before Appellate Judges, Yonette Cummings-Edwards, Rishi Persaud and Arif Bulkan, yesterday, Defence Attorney George Thomas raised a number of points in which he believes the trial judge erred or misdirected the jury towards the end of the trial in the High Court.
In addition to severity of sentence, Thomas addressed the Court on five additional grounds which he claims led to the erroneous conviction and sentence of his client.
During his address, Thomas pointed out, inter alia, what he claimed is a “conflict” in the evidence of the two main eyewitnesses.
He stressed that the trial judge, at the summing up of the evidence, only underlined the strength of the testimony provided by eyewitness and police constable Neil Thornhill.
Thomas told the court that while constable Thornhill said he recognized one of the men involved in the crime to be Rowe, he also said that there was a light which cast a shadow on the faces of the men at the time of the incident.
Thomas noted that the Judge failed to point out the latter to the jury.
The lawyer said too that that the policeman claimed that he recognized Rowe, because of encounters with him when he was 14 years old. However, Thomas said, at the time when the crime was committed his client was 17 years old.
“His features would have been notably changed by age seventeen. You cannot say that the person you knew at 14 years would look the same way three years later,” he argued.
He claimed a failure to highlight such weaknesses added to his detriment of his client‘s case.
Pointing out what he described as conflict in the evidence, Thomas told the Court that he believes the testimony of Chandrika Datt, another eyewitness, was not handled in the same manner.
Recounting the evidence of Datt, the lawyer noted that this eyewitness told the court he attended an identification parade in September of 2010, but he is not certain that Rowe was the man that he picked out.
Datt is owner of the pharmacy in which the fatal shooting took place.
“He said that he picked out a man, but he is not certain it was the accused,” added Thomas.
According to the attorney, the trial judge erred when he failed to adequately direct the jury on the evidence of the second eyewitness. He surmised, therefore, that in the minds of jury, the testimony of one witness was given more prominence than the other.
“On one hand,” he said “the testimony of a policeman (constable Thornhill) is highlighted as saying that he recognized Cobra (Rowe) and on the other, no (prominence) was given Datt, who is saying he is not certain that he (Cobra) was the man he picked out at the ID parade.”
Thomas argued that the jury should have been instructed to carefully assess the evidence of both witnesses. He noted that the absence of that direction is critical and that is where the conflict lies.”
Expounding on the issue of severity of sentence, Thomas argued that the Judge administered a lengthy “term of years” sentence, without taking into consideration the time the crime was committed.
He noted that in August 2010 (the time of the alleged murder) there was no amendment to the law as it relates to the legal punishment for murder; it was still the death penalty.
“No amendment was made to the legislation at that time to allow for a term of years sentence.”
While he agreed that the imposition of the death penalty could not be less severe than the term of years, the lawyer argued that the excessiveness of the sentence should be viewed in the same manner as a mandatory death sentence.
Emphasizing that the law cannot be retroactively administered, Thomas held that it was a wrong determination by the Court to hand down a term of years sentence without taking into consideration the amendment took effect until October of 2010.
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