Derek Achong

Af­ter spend­ing eight years in jail and en­dur­ing three tri­als, a Mor­vant mur­der ac­cused yes­ter­day walked out of the Port-of-Spain High Court a free man. The 12-mem­ber ju­ry in the Sixth Crim­i­nal Court took a lit­tle more than an hour to ac­quit Jo­van "Doo­goo" Maxwell, 27, of Pel­i­can Ex­ten­tion, Mor­vant.

An elat­ed Maxwell broke down in tears on hear­ing the ver­dict and em­braced rel­a­tives out­side the court af­ter be­ing re­leased. In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Maxwell said he was hap­py to be able to go home to his fam­i­ly. "I was al­ways in­no­cent of that crime...I am just go­ing home now to build my life over," Maxwell said.

Maxwell was be­fore Jus­tice Hay­den St Clair Dou­glas, charged with the mur­der of Dar­ryl Lewis, 18, of L'Anse Mi­tan Road, Care­nage. Lewis died af­ter he was shot in the head in an in­ci­dent at Up­per Es­pinet Street, Cal­vary Hill, Mor­vant, on Au­gust 23, 2004. Lewis' moth­er, Car­ol Lewis, who had been present at every hear­ing of the tri­al, was not in at­ten­dance for the ver­dict yes­ter­day.

Maxwell's first tri­al re­sult­ed in a hung ju­ry, while his first re­tri­al was abort­ed short­ly af­ter it com­menced. He was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­neys Wayne Sturge and Vive­ka Par­gass, while the mat­ter was pros­e­cut­ed by state at­tor­ney Jen­nifer Mar­tin.