Appeal Court orders retrial for accused in Plaisance bus driver’s murder

The Guyana Court of Appeal on Friday ordered a retrial for 35-year-old Orin Jerrick, who had been convicted and sentenced to 28 years’ imprisonment for the unlawful killing of Beterverwagting, East Coast Demerara minibus driver Gavin Fiffee.

Jerrick was initially charged with murdering the 31-year-old father of two on July 13, 2014. Following a trial in 2016 before Justice Navindra Singh, he was found guilty of the lesser count of manslaughter by a jury.
Media reports are that on July 31, 2014, Jerrick stabbed Fiffee at the Plaisance minibus park, Georgetown. It was reported that on the day in question, Fiffee was loading his minibus when Jerrick began urinating on the wheel. As a result, the now dead man confronted him and an argument ensued. During the ordeal, Jerrick pulled out a knife and stabbed the man to the upper right chest.
An injured Fiffee was rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation by public-spirited citizens but succumbed to his injuries while receiving medical attention. A few days later, Jerrick surrendered to the police. Dissatisfied with the ruling of the High Court, Jerrick mounted an appeal against his conviction and sentence at the Court of Appeal.

Claiming several errors in law were made by the trial Judge, Jerrick, through his lawyer Nigel Hughes, contended that his conviction was unsafe and should be set aside. Deliberating on the matter were Chancellor of the Judiciary Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards and Justices of Appeal Rishi Persaud and Dawn Gregory.
In delivering the ruling of the Court, the Chancellor upheld Hughes’ contention that the trial Judge misdirected the jury on the issue of self-defence. Deeming this ground of appeal as having merit, the Chancellor said: “to our mind, this issue was not adequately dealt with, it was insufficient.”
While the Judge guided the jury on the law about self-defence, the Appeal Court pointed out that the Judge still went wrong in his summation.
“But where the trial Judge went wrong, it would appear to us in his summation to the jury the trial judge put it over in such a way that it was the deceased person who would have had to had the benefit of self-defence rather than the accused person.”
According to her, the statement given to the police by Jerrick and his testimony in his defence both raised the issue of self-defence. But according to the Chancellor, both statements were not addressed by the trial Judge.
It was noted by the Chancellor that when considering the issue of self-defence, the trial Judge did not say to the jury what they should have done if the issue of self-defence arose in the circumstances and how they must treat with the issue of doubt. Noting that no burden is placed on Jerrick by law to prove that he acted in self-defence, the Chancellor pointed out that it is for the prosecution to prove that he was not acting in self-defence in the circumstances.
“We [Appeal Court] are of the view that the trial Judge did not properly put Jerrick’s defence of self-defence and he was thereby robbed of the benefit of that defence,” Justice Cummings Edwards held.
The Chancellor said that in his unsworn statement Jerrick said, “I am innocent of this. I rely on the statement that I give to the police. I was in Georgetown at the car park at Avenue of the Republic when I went to the back of the bus by the back wheel to urinate. As I stood there, the driver of the bus and several others armed themselves with knives and cutlasses and came and attack me, firing chops and trying to bore me while snatching my gold chain weighing 101 pennyweights. All I did was tried to defend myself by trying to block some of the chops. As a result, I received several chops to my hands, face, neck. I was unarmed at the time.”
In examining this unsworn statement, the Chancellor stated, “Nowhere in the summing up did the trial Judge discuss this statement.” According to her, the trial Judge was duty-bound to explain and analyse this statement for the jury’s benefit since it formed part and parcel of Jerrick’s case.
As a consequence, the Court, in allowing the appeal, set aside the conviction for manslaughter and ordered that Jerrick be retried for murder at the next practicable sitting of the Demerara Assizes.