By Emmanuel Joseph
The murder conviction of Jamar Dwayne Bynoe for the deaths of six young women at the Campus Trendz clothing store 12 years ago will stand.
The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) on Friday denied an application brought by Bynoe’s attorney, King’s Counsel Andrew Pilgrim, seeking special leave to appeal his conviction for the murders of Shanna Griffith, Kelly-Ann Welch, Pearl Cornelius, Kellishaw Olivierre, Nikita Belgrave and Tiffany Harding, on September 3, 2010.
In June this year, the local Court of Appeal upheld Bynoe’s 2016 conviction but set aside his death sentence and ordered that he be resentenced by the High Court.
Pilgrim subsequently turned to the CCJ, Barbados’ final appeal court, seeking special leave to appeal the conviction but the Trinidad-headquartered court refused.
“The decision of the court confirms the view we had formed on first reviewing this application when we decided that, given the gravity of the matter, as Mr Pilgrim has repeated and properly pointed out, it requires our best deliberation and consideration. We are satisfied that we should refuse the application for leave to appeal,” said Justice Denys Barrow in delivering the unanimous decision of the three-member panel that also included Justices Winston Anderson and Andrew Burgess.
Bynoe was one of two men who firebombed the store in Tudor Street, The City after robbing it, resulting in a fire in which the six women died.
The CCJ judges rejected six new grounds of appeal submitted by Pilgrim, based on the court’s position of not hearing any new grounds unless excluding those grounds could cause a serious miscarriage of justice.
“We have looked very closely and repeatedly at the proposed grounds and we are satisfied, firstly, that in relation to the proposed new grounds of appeal…we will regard it as an abuse of process… for the court to allow new grounds to be argued before this court which were not argued before the Court of Appeal, unless there would be a miscarriage of justice to not allow a new ground or new grounds to be argued,” Justice Barrow said.
“We are satisfied that the new grounds do not reveal that there is anything which was not considered, which was significant, substantial, or could make a real difference to the proposed appeal.”
The appellate judge said the other grounds were substantially the re-arguing or presentation of grounds that were argued in the Court of Appeal, including on the matter of Bynoe’s intent.
When he submitted his grounds on Friday, Pilgrim argued that the judge presiding over Bynoe’s murder trial erred when she misdirected the jury on the specific intention of his client regarding his six capital offences.
“This was a case that needed very clear directions because on its face, it was a robbery. I think there was no dispute that this was a robbery that went awry,” the King’s Counsel said.
“All injury in this matter was the result of circumstances that the appellant could not possibly have foreseen…. We could not say with any certainty he should have foreseen that people could have been seriously injured or that people could have died,” he added, arguing that in a case such as Bynoe’s, in which there is no direct attack on the deceased, the jury should have been given assistance “in working out what the possible intent of the appellant would have been”.
However, Justice Barrow said the CCJ did not agree.
“We have fully considered the erudite judgement of the Court of Appeal in this matter. We have looked at the particular matters which were raised by Mr Pilgrim in his usual comprehensive and thorough fashion, and we are satisfied that the Court of Appeal in relation to the question of intent in particular…dealt very fully and ably and properly with the question of intent over quite a few paragraphs.
“We have closely reviewed it and do not think there is anything which was lacking or anything which offers the potential of any injustice or unfairness to the appellant in the treatment given [by] the Court of Appeal on the question of intent. Therefore, we are satisfied as indicated that there is not any basis to allow any further argument in relation to this,” the CCJ judge declared.
The court also dismissed Pilgrim’s submission that the trial judge should have offered Bynoe the opportunity to have a handwriting expert after he had denied writing a statement that formed part of the prosecution’s evidence.
Pilgrim also argued that it was inappropriate for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to proceed with a murder charge against his client while it accepted a manslaughter plea from his co-accused, Renaldo Anderson Alleyne, who was the “primary actor” in the women’s deaths.
He argued that there was “some flaw in that position”.
“He is the person that threw the Molotov cocktails and put the real danger into the Campus Trendz building that day in circumstances that the Director of Public Prosecutions accepts pleas from him and makes for the lesser offence of manslaughter,” the senior attorney declared.
In response, Deputy DPP Aliston Seale said his side maintained its written submissions which had already been sent to the court, but highlighted a few of the issues raised by Pilgrim.
Seale answered the question of intent by insisting that the intent to commit mayhem was firebombing a store with people inside. “Even though he [Bynoe] was the co-accused, it was a question of joint enterprise. He was armed with the knife and stabbed the owner of the store. So he played an active part in the perpetration of the crime,” the Deputy DPP argued.
On the question of accepting the manslaughter plea for Alleyne but moving ahead with a murder trial for Bynoe, Seale clarified that the co-accused offered to plead guilty to manslaughter and the prosecution had accepted.
“The State never goes to an individual and offers them a plea,” he submitted.
Chairman of the three-member appeals panel Justice Anderson promised that in due course, the written reasons for the decision will appear on the CCJ’s website.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb
