Shooting death of Kitty businessman: Manslaughter convict loses appeal against 25-year sentence

Finding that his grounds of appeal have no merit, the Guyana Court of Appeal, in a unanimous decision rendered on Thursday, dismissed an appeal filed by Travis McDougall, who is currently serving a 25-year jail sentence on a manslaughter conviction.

Back in 2017, by a unanimous jury verdict after a trial at the Demerara High Court,
McDougall had been found guilty of unlawfully killing Ashokkoemar Raghoo, who was shot dead during a robbery on Vlissengen Road, Georgetown in August 2014.
McDougall had initially been indicted for the capital offence of murder, but was found guilty of the lesser count, and was slapped with a 25-year sentence by trial Judge Navindra Singh.

Raghoo, 43, of 77 Pike Street, Kitty, Georgetown, was pronounced dead on arrival at the Georgetown Public Hospital shortly after being shot and robbed. His wife, Shyrazadi Raghoo, was shot to her left thigh during the ordeal. The couple were going to transact business with some $4 million when two bandits on a motorcycle pounced on them while they were in a motor car at the traffic light at Regent and Vlissengen Road. Ashok Raghoo tried to resist the bandits and was fatally shot.
Dissatisfied with the ruling of the lower court, the convict, through lawyers Nigel Hughes and Narissa Leander, appealed against his conviction and sentence.
Among other things, McDougall, in his grounds of appeal, had argued that the trial judge had committed errors in law, misdirected the jury, placed a burden on him to prove his defence, and imposed a sentence that was excessive and wrong in principle.
His lawyers had argued that there was no evidence before the court to support a conviction of manslaughter against their client.

Conviction, sentence affirmed
Deliberating on this matter were Chancellor of the Judiciary Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards and Justices of Appeal Dawn Gregory and Rishi Persaud. Reading the court’s ruling, the Chancellor said McDougall’s grounds of appeal were baseless.
“Looking at the summing up, we are of the view that the trial judge did give the jury the necessary directions on identification in his own terms, and therefore the jury would have been alerted of the need for caution and the various factors which they would have had to take into consideration in coming to their conclusion,” she said.
Apart from contesting the identification evidence, McDougall had contended that the sentence imposed on him was manifestly excessive and not in keeping with established sentencing guidelines. To amplify their argument that the sentence was excessive, his lawyers had relied on several case law authorities in which persons convicted of manslaughter were given a lesser sentence when compared to their client’s.
In affirming the sentence, Justice Cummings-Edwards said the sentence imposed on McDougall was within the range of sentences imposed by the Court of Appeal for that offence. She noted that each case would turn on its own particular facts.
“We believe that a sentence of 25 years is appropriate in all the circumstances of this case…sentencing is a matter for the trial judge, who would have seen and heard witnesses, including the accused person [McDougall]. An appellate court must not, because it feels that a different sentence should be passed, thereby impose a different one. We [were] far removed from the case, and cannot substitute our view for that of the trial judge,” the Chancellor underscored.
Having regard to the foregoing, the Court of Appeal dismissed McDougall’s appeal, thereby upholding his conviction and jail sentence.

Arguments
McDougall’s lawyers had argued that the trial Judge erred when he placed the burden on their client to prove his defence. Leander had submitted that Justice Singh, in his summation, “actually placed the burden of proving the defence on [McDougall] by the words used in the summation”.
Leander had said that even though Justice Singh had told the jury that McDougall had nothing to prove, he went on to tell the jury, “The things that [McDougall] says to you, he does not have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, like the prosecution”. She had argued that, by those words, the jury may have been led to believe that it was the burden of her client to prove his defence.
The defence counsel had also argued that Justice Singh failed to interrogate the weaknesses in the identification evidence before putting the case to the jury for deliberation on a verdict.
Some aspects of her submissions had also focused on the evidence given by Shyrazadi Raghoo, the dead man’s widow, who had pointed out McDougall on an identification parade. According to Leander, this witness testified that, on the ID parade, McDougall had a beard, and so did other persons. However, the lawyer pointed out that the woman could not say how many persons were bearded.
Moreover, counsel had said there were weaknesses in the ID evidence, which the trial Judge should have interrogated during summing up, and placed before the jurors for their consideration for them to decide whether the woman’s evidence could be relied on in determining the guilt of her client.
Another specific weakness in the ID evidence, she had said, was that the trial Judge failed to put to the jury the fact that there was no evidence from the eyewitness as to how long she would have had the rider under her observation.
Leander recalled that in her evidence-in-chief, Shyrazadi indicated that the incident lasted for about 55 seconds. But under cross-examination, defence counsel said, “the incident was broken down to a maximum time of 14 seconds” by the witness.
Additionally, Leander had contended that the trial Judge appeared to have suggested to the jury that Shyrazadi had the rider of the motorcycle under her observation for the entire duration of the robbery. This, Leander had submitted, is contrary to the evidence, as the eyewitness only testified to how long the incident lasted, and not to how long she had had the rider under her observation.
For her part, Senior State Counsel Natasha Backer had argued that the issues raised by Leander were not fatal to the credibility of the identification evidence. She had said that Shyrazadi testified that the incident took place in bright sunlight in the middle of the day, and that she was seated in the front passenger seat of the car when it came under attack by a gunman on foot, while another man waited next to the car on a motorcycle.
“The witness spoke to being able to see the faces of these persons from a short distance away, with nothing blocking her view at any time,” Backer had said, while pointing out that in relation to McDougall, the witness spoke about him looking into the car and looking at her.
Added to that, the prosecutor had submitted that the eyewitness also stated that she kept her eyes on the men for the duration of the incident.
Regarding defence counsel’s submission that the eyewitness did not state how long she had had the rider under observation, Backer had argued that she was unaware of any specific time prescribed by case laws or legislation that is required to elapse before a witness is deemed to have made a proper observation.
Instead, the prosecutor had said, it is the duty of the trial Judge to bring this and other factors to the jurors, and give them the directions as required by the case laws.
“The directions which the trial Judge gave in this case were more than adequate in the circumstances,” Backer had submitted.
While there were discrepancies in the description given by the eyewitness compared to what a Police rank had testified, Prosecutor Backer pointed out that the directions given to the jury by the trial Judge were more than adequate to render McDougall’s conviction safe.
“From the verdict, the jury was obviously convinced of [Shyrazadi Raghuoo’s] evidence. They obviously believed her in relation to not only what she saw on the day, but the positive identification of McDougall,” Prosecutor Backer had noted.