Murder convict loses appeal after 20-year battle

A murder convict who was granted leave to file an appeal 11 years after he was convicted and sentenced in 2004 has lost his appeal.

He is Webster Brown, who was convicted in the St Ann Circuit Court on February 5, 2004 and on February 20, 2004 sentenced to life imprisonment.

The judge had ordered that he should serve 25 years before he could be eligible for parole.

He appealed on November 5, 2015 and stated that his lawyer had informed him on the day he was sentenced that he was going to file an appeal.

Brown said in his application that he later discovered that no appeal was filed and so he applied for an extension of time to file an appeal and it was granted.

He was convicted of the murder of Lennox Gibbs who was fatally chopped with a machete on November 24, 2002 in St Ann.

In his defence, Brown had said he was attacked by the deceased and another man who were armed with knives and he defended himself by slapping them with his machete.

Brown's appeal was dismissed on April 12 this year and the court ordered that his sentence must commence on February 20, 2004, the date on which it was imposed.

In handing down its decision, the court pointed out that “on July 13, 2022, nearly seven full years after the appellant made his applications and 18 years since the appellant's sentencing, the court received an incomplete transcript of the trial.”

The appellate court said it received additional portions of the evidence on February 28 this year which was over eight years since the appellant made his applications and twenty years since his sentencing.

The court disclosed that at the hearing in March the full transcript was still not available.

In dismissing the appeal, the court ruled that even from the partial transcript of the judge's summation, it was clear that she placed the appellant's case in a fair and balanced manner before the jury for consideration, therefore, the conviction is sound.

-Barbara Gayle

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