The 15-year-at-hard-labour sentence for convicted Portland farmer Cecil Moore was on Thursday set aside by a nine-member Appeal Court panel and a new prison term of 12 years and three months at hard labour handed down after the body unanimously decided that he should have benefited from a discount for the time he spent behind bars awaiting sentencing.

His appeal against his conviction, however, was refused.

The case of Moore, who had been serving a 15-year sentence after being retried for a 2012 incident, had been under consideration by the panel of nine Appeal Court judges sitting together, a first in the history of the court, since Monday this week.

The convicted man had sought the ruling from the appellate body on whether he was to be given credit for the two years and nine months he spent in custody before his first trial, in recognition of his constitutional rights to liberty, despite there being a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years for wounding with intent under Section 20 (2) (b) of the Offences Against the Person Act.

Moore had been arrested in June 2012 and found guilty in November 2012 of one count of illegal possession of firearm and one count of wounding with intent. He was sentenced in December 2012 to 15 years on both counts. In an appeal heard in December 2014 while he was still in custody, Moore was acquitted and a retrial ordered. At the retrial in March 2016, he was, however, found guilty on both counts and was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment for illegal possession and 15 years at hard labour for wounding with intent. Both sentences were to run concurrently.

On Thursday the court, after hearing submissions from defence attorney Robert Fletcher appearing with Russell Stewart for Moore, Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula — Llewellyn and attorney Jeffrey Foreman appearing for the Office of the Attorney General — Appeal Court President Justice Marva McDonald Bishop gave the decision in summary.

“We are happy to announce that after much discourse, as is evident by the time we have taken out, we have come to a unanimous decision. The ideal thing would have been for the court to wait and produce its judgment explaining everything and then showing our decision, but we are mindful that the applicant is still in custody and there is this issue as to his early release date which often times confronts us at the Court of Appeal and we don’t wish for that to come up and the prison authorities are calling upon us for this decision,” she explained.

McDonald-Bishop, while making it clear that Moore’s sentence had not been reduced but that he had simply benefited from being credited for the time he had spent in custody before being sentenced, said the Appeal Court will give its reasons for its decision “in short order”.

The panel, in making its orders, refused Moore’s application against his conviction but granted his application for leave to appeal against the sentence on count two of the indictment for the offence of wounding with intent.

“The appeal against sentence on count two of the indictment for wounding with intent is allowed. The sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment at hard labour imposed by the learned trial judge for the offence of wounding with intent is set aside and substituted therefor is the following: 15 years’ imprisonment at hard labour for the offence of wounding with intent less credit given of two years and nine months for time spent on pre-sentence remand. Having deducted the time spent on pre-sentence remand of two years and nine months, the applicant is to serve 12 years and three months’ imprisonment at hard labour for the offence of wounding with intent,” McDonald-Bishop said.

The sentence is being treated as having begun on March 10, 2016 the date on which it was imposed by the trial judge.

On Monday, defence attorney Fletcher argued that his client should have received “full credit for the time spent in custody, pending trial”.

“That principle is a common law principle that has been in operation and well known in our jurisdiction, but all of the variations and possibly the unevenness of the application of this principle coming along is probably due to the fact that judges have been grappling with its application as against minimum sentence legislation,” Fletcher contended.

On Tuesday, DPP Llewellyn, making submissions on behalf of her office, said, “We would concede that the pre-trial remand of two years and nine months — because there was no consideration given in light of the imposition of the minimum mandatory sentence — that it would be a breach of his constitutional right to liberty”.

She said the prosecution was of the view, having assessed case law with similar matters, that there were avenues through which Moore’s situation could have been handled at sentencing and made a “just one”.

The prosecution’s case is that on June 17, 2012 about 7:00 am, the complainant, a farmer who lived in Windsor, Portland, left his house for his farm. However, on leaving the farm shortly after and heading back to his house he heard sounds like gunshots.

He looked in the direction of the sounds and saw Moore — whom he had known prior to that date — with a gun in his hand. He was chased by Moore and, at some point during the chase, both men fell. A struggle ensued during which the complainant used the machete he had to chop Moore in order to escape. It was after his escape that he realised he had been shot twice.

Moore, in an unsworn statement from the dock, stated that he had been on his way to feed his goats in John’s Hall, which is apparently also located in Windsor, when he heard shots being fired and ran for cover. It was at this time he saw the complainant who chopped him with a machete. There was a physical struggle between the two, which resulted in him (Moore) falling to the ground.

He said that the complainant chopped him on the hand and in the head, and while this was happening a masked person, who appeared to have a gun in his hand, joined the complainant on the scene. The complainant told this person not to kill Moore as he was already dying. Both men then left Moore in the wooded area where he had been attacked. He denied having a gun.