Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A High Court Judge has or­dered the con­di­tion­al re­lease of a 29-year-old man of La Hor­quet­ta, Ari­ma, who ad­mit­ted to com­mit­ing a shoot­ing when he was a teenag­er which claimed the life of a neigh­bour.

Keis­hon Browne was ini­tial­ly charged with mur­der, at­tempt­ed mur­der, and shoot­ing with in­tent but plead­ed guilty to mur­der and shoot­ing with in­tent af­ter he ob­tained a max­i­mum sen­tence in­di­ca­tion from High Court Judge Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds. The at­tempt­ed mur­der charge was dis­con­tin­ued by the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

Browne was re­leased by Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds as she per­formed his sen­tenc­ing ex­er­cise yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

Browne was charged with mur­der­ing De­on O’Brien on May 12, 2011.

O’Brien and a group of friends were play­ing cards un­der a street light at Phase Six, La Hor­quet­ta, Ari­ma, when two gun­men emerged from a drain and be­gan shoot­ing at them.

The friends at­tempt­ed to run away but O’Brien and his friend Leon Gumbs were shot.

O’Brien suc­cumbed to his in­juries but Gumbs sur­vived.

One of their friends was able to iden­ti­fy Browne as one of their at­tack­ers by his build and the man­ner in which he walked as she knew him for sev­er­al years.

When he was de­tained by po­lice, Browne ad­mit­ted to par­tic­i­pat­ing in the shoot­ing.

He claimed that he shot at Gumbs, who was the tar­get, while his ac­com­plice fo­cused on O’Brien.

In de­cid­ing on the ap­pro­pri­ate sen­tence for Browne, Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds not­ed that the manda­to­ry death penal­ty for mur­der could not ap­ply as he was a mi­nor at the time of the shoot­ing.

She be­gan with a start­ing point of 25 years for mur­der and sev­en years for shoot­ing with in­tent be­fore re­duc­ing both sen­tences by one year and six months re­spec­tive­ly due to the fact that he had a clean crim­i­nal record be­fore par­tic­i­pat­ing in the shoot­ing and his age.

Af­ter ap­ply­ing a one-third dis­count for his guilty pleas and de­duct­ing 11 years he spent on re­mand be­fore plead­ing guilty, Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds not­ed that he had al­ready com­plet­ed the less­er sen­tence and had over three years to serve on the mur­der charge be­fore he was el­i­gi­ble for a sen­tence re­view.

Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds con­duct­ed the sen­tence re­view im­me­di­ate­ly and ruled that he was el­i­gi­ble for re­lease based on his con­duct in prison and the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­grammes he par­tic­i­pat­ed in.

“The gen­tle­man who is be­fore us is not the 17-year-old that com­mit­ted the crime,” she said.

As part of his sen­tence, Browne was or­dered to be un­der the su­per­vi­sion of a pro­ba­tion of­fi­cer for three years with progress re­ports be­ing sub­mit­ted every six months.

She warned him that if he com­mit­ted a crim­i­nal of­fence while un­der su­per­vi­sion he would be forced to serve the re­main­ing three years of his sen­tence.

“Hope­ful­ly, there would be no need for you to re­turn,” she said, as she en­cour­aged him to use the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be­come a con­tribut­ing mem­ber of so­ci­ety.

The case was pros­e­cut­ed by Stacey Laloo-Chong, while Deputy Chief Pub­lic De­fend­er Raphael Mor­gan rep­re­sent­ed Browne.