After spending 12 years in prison, a 44-year-old United States deportee, convicted of killing a taxi driver in 2002, has been freed by the Court of Appeal.Anthony Jones walked out the Hall of Justice a free man on Tuesday after three Appeal Court judges upheld complaints of a High Court judge's handling of his trial last year. At the end of that trial Jones was found guilty of manslaughter.
In an oral ruling on Tuesday appellate judges Paula Mae Weekes, Alice Yorke-Soo Hon and Mark Mohammed ruled that Jones should not be forced to face a retrial as he had already served a substantial portion of the sentence he would have received if he was convicted of manslaughter for a second time.The judges also noted that the State's case against Jones was weak and it would not have a reasonable prospect of success of convicting Jones in the retrial.
In 2008, Jones' first trial for murdering Joseph Leotaud at his home at Cumuto Road, San Raphael, on April 19, 2002, ended with a hung jury.He was found guilty of manslaughter in June last year after the 12-member jury before Justice Hayden St Clair-Douglas could not agree on a unanimous verdict for the murder charge.In his submissions in Jones' appeal, his lawyer Jagdeo Singh, submitted that St Clair-Douglas failed to direct the jury properly on the role of Jones' alleged accomplice in Leotaud's murder.
Singh also said St Clair-Douglas failed to consider Jones' alibi that he was at his aunt's home at the time of the murder as well as the fact that he denied giving police a confession statement which was a critical part of the State's case.All three grounds were accepted by the judges in their judgment.Jones was also represented by Christine Sahadeo, while Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Kathy Ann Waterman-Latchoo represented the State.