27.2 C
Belize City
Friday, March 29, 2024

World Down Syndrome Day

Photo: Students and staff of Stella Maris...

BPD awards 3 officers with Women Police of the Year

Photo: (l-r) Myrna Pena, Carmella Cacho, and...

Suicide on the rise!

Photo: Iveth Quintanilla, Mental Health Coordinator by Charles...

Keon Williams Myvette, 26, acquitted of murder and manslaughter

GeneralKeon Williams Myvette, 26, acquitted of murder and manslaughter
Keon Williams Myvette, 26, an electrician of York Street in Belize City, was tonight acquitted of murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter before Justice Herbert Lord in the Supreme Court.
  
The acquittals came after a marathon day of summation and subsequent deliberation by a jury of six men and six women, which followed on three weeks of case presentation.
  
Myvette was accused of the shooting death of Michael “Papa” Gladden, 32, on Lovely Lane on February 28, 2007. His first trial before Justice Adolph Lucas in November of 2008 ended in a hung jury when after nearly six hours of deliberation, the jury in that case could not reach a unanimous verdict on the murder charge. He was defended at that time by senior counsel Simeon Sampson.
  
There were several major differences between this and the first trial. Whereas Myvette chose to remain silent when time came for his defense in 2008, this time he gave an unsworn statement from the prisoner’s dock, in which he claimed to know nothing about Gladden’s death, stating that he was not at the scene at the material time, but at his father’s house on the Southside of the City from ten in the morning until the time he was detained. He also alleged that police assaulted him and forced a statement from him under duress.
  
One of his defense witnesses—who said she was at her house in the area at the time but did not witness the shooting—mentioned several other individuals as being present in the area, but not Myvette.
  
Among the primary witnesses for the Crown was the brother of the deceased, Elton Tingling, who claimed to have seen the deceased and Myvette fighting on Lovely Lane just after 1:00 on the afternoon of February 28. He said he went over and got between them, whereupon Myvette reportedly told them to wait there until he got back, and then “that dah it.”
  
Tingling further claimed that half an hour later, after leaving the area, he came upon Myvette with what appeared to be a firearm in his possession. He claimed that Myvette told him that it was his brother, Gladden, he wanted, and not him, Tingling.
  
But despite repeated warnings, Gladden went back out on Lovely Lane and was shot at twice, one bullet catching him in the left side of the head.
  
Forensic examiner Dr. Mario Estradabran certified the cause of death as trauma shock from severe brain damage due to the gunshot wound. The bullet, which Dr. Estradabran thought to have come from a medium caliber weapon fired from at least 27 inches away and possibly further, penetrated and was encased in between the frontal bone and brain tissue.
  
Senior Superintendent Chester Williams, at that time commander of Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB), was senior officer at the scene and ordered his subordinate Nicolas Palomo (then a corporal and now a sergeant of police) to locate Myvette, who was brought to the Queen Street Police Station with an apparent cut wound to the forehead for which he was treated at the hospital.
  
Sr. Supt. Williams cautioned Myvette and said that Myvette gave a caution statement without force or intimidation; the defendant claimed that Williams had hit him with a firearm and punched and choked him after he, Myvette, denied knowing anything about Gladden’s shooting.
  
Myvette said in his statement in court that the female corporal taking the statement, after cautioning him, told him to give the statement first, following which he would be allowed to call someone.
           
The jury could have found Myvette guilty of murder if they believed that the primary elements, 1) that Gladden was dead and died as a result of harm; 2) that that harm was unlawful and that there was no lawful justification for it; 3) that the accused had committed the harm; and that 4) at the material time of the incident, there was an intent present from the accused to cause the death of the deceased, had been proven by the Crown.
   
Alternatively, they could have considered verdicts for manslaughter on the basis of finding no intent to kill or defense based on provocation, or acquitted if they believed that Myvette acted in self-defense, but in either case only after considering the first three elements and finding that they had been proven to their satisfaction.
  
Myvette was represented by attorney Anthony Sylvestre, while Christelle Wilson prosecuted for the Crown.
  
The jury retired at 12:02 p.m. following Justice Lord’s summation. Reports to us are that at 2:41 p.m. they emerged to query certain legal points with Justice Lord, and retired again at 2:57 p.m.
  
Two and a half hours later, at 5:27, they re-emerged and announced that Myvette was not guilty of murder, but that they had not unanimously agreed on a verdict for manslaughter. Justice Lord sent them back in for deliberations, as under Belizean law, a certain period of time is standard in murder and manslaughter cases to reach a unanimous verdict; however, if that time has passed, a majority verdict of nine or more in favour would be acceptable at that point.
  
Around 7:40 tonight, the jury re-emerged with a not-guilty-on-manslaughter-verdict for Myvette, whose joyous family members carried him down the stairs past waiting members of the press and out into Battlefield Park.
  
His attorney, Sylvestre, told Amandala immediately after the conclusion that after three “exhausting” weeks trying the case, he simply left the decision in the hands of the jurors. “…I always believe that at the end of the day, we have a jury system with reasonable men and women, who will look at all the evidence, consider all the issues before them and arrive at a verdict that is just, and I think that’s what happened tonight.”
  
While differing in circumstances and procedures, Keon Myvette’s two trials took eerily similar turns in how long the juries took to arrive at a decision. The jury in the first trial was out for four hours and sixteen minutes before the first announcement to Justice Lucas, and then a further hour and eighteen minutes before a hung jury was declared.
  
Taking out the two hours and thirty-nine minutes from the end of Justice Lord’s summation to the re-entrance for legal clarification (as this does not count under total time for deliberation), this second jury was out for two and a half hours exactly before the murder acquittal and, from 5:31 p.m. to 7:40 p.m., out for a further two hours and nine minutes before the manslaughter acquittal, for a total of 4 hours and 39 minutes, a difference of about fifty-five minutes.
  
Under the law, Myvette cannot now be retried for Gladden’s death.

Check out our other content

World Down Syndrome Day

Suicide on the rise!

Check out other tags:

International