Convicted killer challenges sentence

The Court of Appeal on Tuesday reserved its decision in an appeal filed by James Ricardo Alexander Fields against his manslaughter conviction and sentence.

The appeal was heard this morning by Justices Rajendra Narine, Francis Belle and Jefferson Cumberbatch.

In February 2020, 12 jurors found Fields formerly of Bank Hall Main Road, St Michael, not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter in the shooting death of Michael Dear. The fatal incident occurred on February 18, 2010.

According to the facts disclosed during trial Fields, who was 18 years old at the time of the incident, was selling drugs under a hut in the Storey Gap, Codrington Hill, St Michael neighbourhood. He sold Dear two cocaine rocks but the dissatisfied customer demanded his money back.

A scuffle ensued between the two, with Dear charging at Fields who pushed him to the ground. Dear recovered and rushed at Field with his fist, but the teenager drew a firearm and shot Dear before fleeing. He was arrested several months later in St Thomas.

In July 2020 Justice Carlisle Greaves sentenced the manslayer to 22 years in prison for the deadly shooting. But after taking several factors into consideration including the six years he spent on remand – Fields was left with 16 years to serve at Dodds.

That sentence took effect from May 15, 2020 given the delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the time it took to compile his pre-sentencing report.

But Fields, through his attorneys Andrew Pilgrim Q.C., Verla Depeiza and Martie Garnes, appealed the conviction and sentence on several grounds.

Among the reasons for the challenge was that the trial judge in his summation failed to adequately highlight the inconsistencies of the prosecution’s case and that such failure affected the overall fairness of the trial; he erred in law when he failed to give a proper direction on how the jury should approach the evidence of a witness found to be deliberately lying on oath and that the judge’s summation failed to direct the jury that the identification parade was unfair.

Fields also argued that the judge’s summation on the defence of alibi was inadequate; he erred by imposing a sentence that was wrong in principle and failed to take into account the ten-year delay in the case at the time of sentencing.

But prosecutors Senior Crown Counsel Neville Watson and Acting Senior Crown Counsel Rudolph Burnett argued that the conviction and sentence were sound. They submitted that the appeal ought to fail and the conviction and sentence affirmed.