AFTER a recent resentencing exercise by the Court of Appeal, a St Catherine man who fired at a cop on a stakeout in Manning’s Hill, St Andrew, in 2015 and was sentenced to two decades behind bars, got a two-month reduction for time he spent in custody before his punishment was handed down.

The man, Rohan Dixon, was convicted in 2021 in the High Court Division of the Gun Court and sentenced to 15 years behind bars for illegal possession of firearm, and 20 years for shooting with intent, with the sentences ordered to run concurrently, making it so that he would spend the longer of the two terms, which is 20 years. He, however, mounted an appeal against his sentences and conviction, arguing, among other things, that the trial judge had erred in not realising that “there was no evidence supportive of a gun being present, particularly since the gun and its spent shells were not recovered and the gun was not described”.

Furthermore, his attorney, in contending that the “evidence did not support the conviction”, argued that there was “no proof” Dixon fired at the cop.

The Crown’s case was that in July of 2015 cops on an operation in Manning’s Hill arrived at “a targeted house” and found the house empty but saw “evidence that its occupants had left in a hurry”. The police hid in the area and kept watch, in the event the occupants returned.

A detective inspector (then a sergeant) who was one of the police officers on the operation testified that whilst positioned at the rear of the house, looking through a window that overlooked “down the hill”, he observed two armed men “coming up the hill” at the rear of the premises. He went to hide at the left side of the house, behind a wall, and saw a man approaching his location with a firearm pointed in his direction. He said when the man was at a distance from him he shouted, “Police, don’t move!” That cop said the man fired at him, but he was not hit.

He said he returned fire, at which point the man turned, ran from the yard and escaped into bushes. When he went in search of the man in the bushes, he saw “blood trails at different sections”.

A detective corporal who gave evidence in the matter said, acting on information a month later, whilst on another operation with a team, Dixon, who he had known from before, was apprehended at a dwelling house in Gregory Park, St Catherine, and seen with a wound to his ankle. He said Dixon, when cautioned, said: “Officer, a site me go pan round a Mexico and steel run inna mi foot.”

Subsequently, at the Portmore lock-up, he allegedly made an oral admission to the same detective corporal that he was present on the scene, claiming that he had followed an individual “uptown [when] the police came, shots were fired, and he got shot in his foot”.

On another occasion Dixon, under caution by a cop, said, “[M]e neva do nothing; ah run me run… ah run me run outta di house and got shot. God know, star,” and “[M]e neva have nuh gun and dem thing deh. Ah dem shoot offa mi.”

Dixon, during the trial however, gave sworn evidence denying that he was involved in the shooting but admitted that he was unsure where he was at the relevant time, before going on to deny that he told cops he was.

The Crown, during the appeal, successfully applied to reopen the prosecution’s case and call evidence in rebuttal of the accused man’s denial of being present at the crime scene.

The Appeal Court, after hearing arguments from both sides in ruling this month, said, “A careful review of this matter has confirmed that the convictions are safe.” According to the judges of the appeal, “there was a more than adequate description of the firearm” given by the detective who was shot at. Furthermore, the court said based on his evidence, which was accepted by the trial judge, “the reasonable and inescapable inference is that the appellant fired at the detective with the specific intention to cause him grievous bodily harm”.

Said the judges of the appeal: “The aggravating features [facts or circumstances surrounding a crime that increase its severity]” in the case “are significant”, noting that the original trial judge had made note of Dixon’s “very poor social enquiry report showing that he was feared in his community”.

Furthermore, the court said he had two previous convictions for illegal possession of firearm and illegal possession of ammunition, offences committed after he had been charged for the offences which were the subject of his appeal.

“At the time of sentencing he had just recently concluded his sentences for those two previous convictions. Those aggravating factors together move the sentence back to at least the 15 years imposed by the learned trial judge,” the appeal panel noted.

In ruling on the contention by Dixon’s lawyers that the original trial judge failed to grant time for the six years he waited before his trial was heard and determined, which amounted to a breach of his constitutional right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time, the appeal court said, “The appellant has not stated that his defence was prejudiced in any way by the overall delay or the delay, which is the responsibility of the prosecution.”

It said, having examined the minute sheets, delays occasioned by the Crown and administrative delays account for approximately 60 per cent of the delay, while the defence was responsible for the remaining 40 per cent.

“The question, therefore, is whether the period of delay of approximately three years and four months, for which the State is responsible, breached the appellant’s constitutional right to a fair trial within a reasonable time,” the panel stated.

In resolving the issue the judges of the appeal said, “The period of three years and four months attributable to the State is not egregious, considering the institutional realities of Jamaica’s justice system. It follows that the delay attributable to the State in this matter coming to trial did not breach the appellant’s constitutional rights to a fair trial within a reasonable time.”

In the meantime, the appeal court, while conceding that “the learned trial judge erred in principle in his conduct of the sentencing exercise”, said “the resentencing carried out by this court has yielded no change in the sentences, save the deduction of the two months which the appellant spent in pre-sentence custody after he concluded serving his sentences on the first set of offences for which he was convicted”.

“The court has specifically found that the delay in this matter coming to trial, for which the State is responsible, did not breach the appellant’s constitutional rights to a fair trial within a reasonable time, therefore, the appellant is not entitled to a reduction in sentence on account of any alleged constitutional breach,” the panel declared.

In apologising to the parties for the delay in the delivery of the judgement, the appeal court refused Dixon’s application to appeal his conviction and sentence for the illegal possession of firearm count, stating, “The sentence of imprisonment of 15 years is affirmed.”

In allowing the appeal against his sentence on count two for shooting with intent, the appeal court, in setting that sentence aside, ruled, “Substituted, therefore, is a sentence of imprisonment of 19 years and 10 months, credit having been given for the two months the appellant spent in pre-sentence custody.”

It said the sentences are to run concurrently, as ordered by the trial judge, and are to be treated as having commenced on April 15, 2021, the date they were imposed.