Farmer's murder conviction downgraded to manslaughter in chopping death of teens
Published:Tuesday | April 12, 2022 | 9:53 AM
The Court of Appeal has overturned the murder conviction of St Elizabeth farmer Alton Baker, who viciously chopped two teen boys to death in 2014.
The court has also slashed six years off his 30-year life imprisonment sentence.
In its judgment delivered on Friday, the Appeals Court determined that the trial judge “erred in failing to leave the issue of provocation to the jury, thereby depriving the appellant of the consideration of the lesser offence of manslaughter.”
The bodies of Ashnell Coke and Desrick Williams — who were both 15 years old — were found together on January 8, 2014, with chop wounds to the back of their heads beneath bushes on the bank of a river in Thornton, St Elizabeth.
Coke and Williams were said to have been caught by Baker stealing from his farm when he attacked them.
He later insisted that the two boys had, on several occasions, stolen from his farm.
A neighbour overheard Baker confessing to his grandmother that he had “chop dem in ah dem... head” shortly after the killings and contacted the police who arrested him.
Baker subsequently told lawmen that “nobody nuh waan hear weh mi haffi seh. A long time dem two boy deh a thief out mi grung.”
Provocation
The court accepted that the possibility of Baker being provoked to anger should have been left to the jury and allowed the appeal.
In its analysis, the court said that the prosecution bore the burden of proving, as an essential ingredient of the offence of murder, that the killing was unprovoked.
It said where there was evidence that the defendant was provoked or may have been provoked in committing murder the prosecution bore the burden of disproving the alleged provocation to the requisite criminal standard.
“If the prosecution fails to do so, then providing all the other ingredients of murder are proved, the appropriate verdict would be one of manslaughter,” the court said.
Additionally, the court noted that provocation was only a partial defence to a charge of murder.
“That being so, a judge runs the risk of there being a miscarriage of justice if he or she fails to leave manslaughter for the jury's consideration once evidence of provocation is detected either on the case for the prosecution or defence,” it noted.
The court said evidence of provocation is regarded as words and/or conduct that are sufficient to cause a reasonable person to suddenly and temporarily lose his self-control, depriving him of his ability to exercise reason.
It said that the governing principle with regards to the duty of the judge is that, irrespective of the line of defence put forward by a defendant at trial, once the issue of provocation arises, even if indirectly in the case of either the prosecution or defence, the judge must direct the jury on its treatment and leave it open to them to return a verdict of manslaughter.
Ruling
The court concluded that the trial judge “erred” when this was not done.
It determined that all the grounds of appeal, except for ground five which dealt with the issue of provocation, failed.
The court concluded that in the interests of justice, the proper course was to substitute manslaughter verdicts in place of murder verdicts.
“The convictions for murder on both counts of the indictment are quashed, judgments and verdicts of acquittal are entered and verdicts of guilty of manslaughter are substituted,” the Appeals Court said.
“The sentences of life imprisonment at hard labour with the stipulation that the appellant serves 30 years before becoming eligible for parole imposed for the offence of murder on both counts of the indictment are set aside and sentences of 24 years' imprisonment at hard labour for manslaughter are substituted.”
The sentences are to run concurrently.
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