A man serving 15 years at hard labour for using an AK-47 to shoot his childhood friend, resulting in disfigurement and impairment, has lost his attempt to challenge his conviction for the crime.

The man, Junior Griffiths, had been tried in the High Court Division of the Gun Court in St Elizabeth in 2021 for illegal possession of a firearm and wounding with intent. He was convicted on both counts and was sentenced on each count to 15 years’ imprisonment at hard labour in December that year. The sentences were ordered to run concurrently.

In what was the second attempt to appeal his conviction, Griffiths through his attorney argued that the trial judge had “misquoted the evidence” and had erred by not “recognising that the weakness of the identification evidence was such that [he] should not have been called upon to answer the case against him”.

Griffiths further argued that this failure resulted in him being denied “a real chance of acquittal”, and contended that the “sentence is manifestly excessive”.

According to the facts outlined by the Crown, the victim, Jason Lawrence was asleep at his house in St Elizabeth in October of 2020 when he was awakened by the sound of explosions.

Prosecutors said Lawrence got up and realised that he had been shot in the hand. Looking through a space in the door of his board house, he said he saw Griffith standing with a “high-power” weapon in his hand. Lawrence, who told investigators that he had known Griffiths for “several years”, said “we a little youth run up and down, a grow. We grow as little youth”.

A detective corporal who processed the scene told the court that she saw five live 7.62 cartridges and eight 7.62 casings at the scene. The bullets, she said, were all over the house and are used in AK-47 rifles. She also observed what appeared to be droplets of blood on the floor of the storage area of the complainant’s board house. There were also droplets of what appeared to be blood on the bed and the floor of the bedroom area, the cop said.

Griffiths, however, denied ever having been at the scene on the night in question, insisting instead that he was at a fast food outlet in Mandeville with three persons at the time of the incident.

The Appeal Court judges, in dismissing the appeal on Thursday and affirming the conviction, said Griffiths’s insistence that the trial judge had misquoted the identification evidence fell through as, “based on the totality of the evidence, the learned judge’s misquoting of the evidence regarding the size of the hole through which the complainant was able to identify the appellant was not fatal”.

The judges of the appeal said, “Even if the learned judge was operating on the mistaken belief that the hole was larger than indicated by the complainant, he still had the evidence of [the detective corporal who investigated the crime] whose evidence he could either accept or reject.”

As to whether the sentence was “manifestly excessive” the judges of the appeal said, “When the aggravating factors are balanced with the mitigating factors, we are of the view that the sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment is not manifestly excessive.”

The aggravating factors, the tribunal said, were the prevalence of firearm offences in Jamaica; the fact that the complainant was shot while asleep in his bed; and that he was seriously injured. The mitigating factors were that Griffiths had no previous convictions and received a “mixed social enquiry report”.

“An examination of cases in which firearms have been used in the commission of other offences reveals that sentences of 10 to 15 years’ imprisonment are within the range of sentences usually imposed for those offences,” the court said in refusing Griffiths’s appeal against his conviction and dismissing the appeal against his sentence.

“The sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment for the offence of illegal possession of a firearm is affirmed. The sentence is to be reckoned as having commenced on 16 December 2021, the date on which it was imposed,” the Judges of the Appeal said.