ALTON Baker, the man convicted for the slaying of two St Elizabeth students in January 2014, on Friday had his murder convictions set aside and substituted for manslaughter after the appeal court found that the trial judge had erred in failing to leave the issue of provocation to the jury, and as such deprived Baker “of the consideration of the lesser offence of manslaughter”.

The St Elizabeth man, who was in 2017 convicted on two counts of murder before Justice Martin Gayle, had been sentenced on both counts to life imprisonment at hard labour, with the stipulation that he should serve 30 years before becoming eligible for parole. Those sentences were ordered to run concurrently.

However, on Friday the court, which had reserved judgement in 2021 after hearing the appeal, ruled that the “convictions for murder on both counts of the indictment are quashed, judgements and verdicts of acquittal are entered and verdicts of guilty of manslaughter are substituted”.

It further ruled that the sentences of life imprisonment at hard labour with the stipulation that the appellant serves 30 years before becoming eligible for parole be set aside and sentences of 24 years’ imprisonment at hard labour for manslaughter substituted. The court further ruled that the sentences are to be viewed as having commenced on July 7, 2017 and are to run concurrently.

In the case, which captured national attention, the fathers of the 15-year-old teens Deswick Williams and Ashnell Coke on January 8 realised their sons were missing after neither were home at nightfall. A search party, which set out at 10 pm that night, led to a river where one of the boys would always fish and subsequently led to the discovery of their bodies.

The prosecution called eight witnesses, one of whom testified that she earlier that day heard the enraged farmer telling his grandmother that he “kill the two (expletive) boy dem who a nyam out mi grung [a colloquial word for farm]”.

According to the witnesss, the convicted man who she knew from birth then went on to say, “mi chop dem in ah dem head and a same so if me ketch Kenroy me a go push di machete through him neck… cause him drive down him car pon me and a same so if no pickney in deh me ah go kill di whole ah dem too.”

The court heard that the convicted man’s grandmother told him to calm down and offered him food, which he told her to put away until later.

The St Elizabeth police, based on information received in the hours following the gruesome discovery of the bodies, about 3:00 am, went to Baker’s house and took him into custody for questioning. The cops then returned to his home and seized a pair of water boots, items of clothing and three machetes that belonged to Baker before returning to the Siloah Police Station, where he was arrested on reasonable suspicion of murder.

During the trial Baker, in a brief unsworn statement from the dock, said that he did not commit the murders and he knew nothing about them. He also denied making the statements attributed to him.

Counsel for Baker, in filing the appeal on seven grounds, argued mainly that he was denied a fair trial because of various failures and/or errors on the trial judge’s part.

On the issue of whether the trial judge’s directions to the jury on how to treat the statement of the witness to his grandmother in respect of the murders was inadequate, the court on Friday said, “even in the face of the deficiencies in the trial judge’s directions, we cannot say that the jury would have arrived at any other conclusion…consequently, we are satisfied that the conviction is safe on this basis, and the appellant has not suffered any substantial miscarriage of justice. Accordingly, this ground fails”.

On Friday the court in handing down its ruling said all the grounds of appeal had failed except for ground 5, which held that the trial judge erred in failing to leave the lesser offence of manslaughter, on the basis of provocation, to the jury for their consideration.

“Under that ground, as indicated earlier, we found that the trial judge erred in failing to leave the issue of provocation to the jury, thereby depriving the appellant of the consideration of the lesser offence of manslaughter. However, having regard to the compelling evidence against the appellant that was presented at the trial, we are of the view that, in the interests of justice, the proper course to adopt is to substitute verdicts of guilty of manslaughter in place of the verdicts of guilty for murder. For that reason, it is necessary for us to revisit the sentences that the trial judge imposed,” the appeal court said.

“As indicated, we find that the appropriate sentence range in the circumstances of this case, which involves two victims, would be between 15 to 25 years. Being mindful of the overwhelming evidence against the appellant and the age and immaturity of the victims, we think an appropriate starting point within the range would be 19 years’ imprisonment,” the court said further.

The court, in making its decision, also considered several aggravating factors which included, among other things, the prevalence of these offences in Jamaica and the location of the injuries, which were to the back of the heads as well as the mitigating factors such as an antecedent report, which described Baker as hard-working and a psychiatric report that indicated that the appellant had been affected by his prolonged use of ganja.

It said while as a result of the mitigating factors, the sentences would be adjusted downwards, when the aggravating and mitigating factors are balanced, it still found that the aggravating factors far outweigh the mitigating factors in the present case and that sentences close to the top of the range would be appropriate.

“As a result, when the total offending is looked at, in the round, against the background of the personal circumstances of the appellant, we believe a sentence of 24 years’ imprisonment at hard labour on each count of the indictment would be appropriate,” it said.