A St Andrew man who was in 2020 sentenced to life behind bars at hard labour for a 2008 murder in the Grant’s Pen Gully in the parish has lost his bid to have the Appeal Court overturn his conviction.

Following a jury trial in 2020 Sedikie Franklin was found guilty of making use of a firearm to commit a felony, murder, wounding with intent, and illegal possession of a firearm.

Franklin was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment at hard labour for the offence of making use of a firearm to commit a felony, life imprisonment with parole eligibility after serving 30 years for murder, 15 years’ imprisonment at hard labour for wounding with intent, and 10 years’ imprisonment at hard labour for illegal possession of firearm. The sentences are to run concurrently making it so that he would spend the longest of the four terms before being eligible for parole.

Franklin however challenged his conviction arguing, among other things, that the trial judge had failed to give an express direction on the principle of “mere presence” thereby rendering his conviction unsafe.

According to Franklin’s attorney, there was a failure on the part of the trial judge to make it clear to the jurors that mere presence at the scene of an offence was not evidence of participation in the offence.

But the judges of the appeal in rejecting that argument, said they were satisfied, after reviewing the transcript of the trial that the judge’s “summation as a whole conveyed, with sufficient clarity across the counts, that presence had to be accompanied by purposeful participation before guilt could follow”.

The judges further pointed out that “the evidence was that [Franklin] was individually and positively identified at close range, approximately five feet away, as one of two men standing beside the passenger side of the motor vehicle, armed with a firearm and pointing it towards the deceased while his co-assailant simultaneously did the same”.

According to the Crown, on the day in question, the victim was travelling in the front passenger seat of a motor car driven by an eyewitness along the Grant’s Pen Road in the parish on Saturday, September 20, 2008.

The eyewitness told the trial that his passenger was shot as the vehicle approached the sloping entrance to the Grant’s Pen gully by one of two men. Franklin was said to be standing beside the passenger side of the motor vehicle, armed with a firearm and pointing it towards the deceased while his co-assailant simultaneously did the same. The eyewitness had further testified that, after driving away, he continued to hear additional gunfire and later discovered that he had also sustained a gunshot wound.

Said the judges of the appeal, “If that evidence was accepted, the applicant’s conduct plainly transcended mere presence and constituted direct evidence of active participation in the attack. It was capable, without more, of establishing that he intentionally acted in concert with the other assailant in furtherance of the common design to shoot someone in the vehicle.”

Furthermore they noted that Franklin “did not advance a defence that he was innocently present at the scene”.

“Rather, he denied being at the motor vehicle, denied possessing a firearm, and denied any participation in the attack. Accordingly, the evidence presented the jury with only two realistic alternatives. The learned trial judge’s summation properly identified the two competing factual scenarios arising on the evidence and appropriately furnished the jury with the adequate legal framework in which to assess each version and the consequences flowing from its acceptance,” the judges of the appeal reasoned.

The judges, in the meantime, also dismissed arguments by Franklin’s attorney that the trial judge erred in not accepting an application by the defence to visit the location where the shooting took place along with the jury.

“We are not persuaded that the learned trial judge erred in refusing the application for a view of the
locus in quo. Her decision represented a proper exercise of the discretion vested in her and discloses no basis for appellate intervention,” the appeal court judges said.

In striking down the third ground of the appeal in which Franklin contended that the exclusion of photographs of the area which were taken in 2020 led to an unfair trial the judges said, “We are not persuaded that the exclusion of the photographs themselves, as distinct from the evidence describing the features they were intended to depict, deprived the applicant of the opportunity to present his case fully or otherwise occasioned any unfairness in the conduct of the trial.

“Nothing before this court demonstrates that the excluded photographs would have materially advanced the defence beyond the evidence already elicited. There is no indication that they depicted any feature of the crime scene, or its vicinity, that could not adequately be described by oral testimony, nor has it been shown that they would have undermined the eyewitness’s opportunity for observation or otherwise materially affected the assessment of his credibility,” the tribunal said further.

In dismissing Franklin’s appeal, the judges said, “For the reasons given, there is no prospect of success in any of the three grounds advanced in challenging the convictions, and there is no basis on which the sentences imposed could be justifiably challenged by the applicant and disturbed by this court.”

The Court of Appeal ordered that Franklin will continue to serve the sentences imposed by the trial judge.