The Court of Appeal overturned the convictions of Dantay Brooks, son of Dancehall veteran Mavado, and his co-accused Andre Hinds, after identifying critical judicial errors in their trial. The two, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment four years ago, were freed due to a judge’s mismanagement of key evidence.
As reported by the Jamaica Star, in their ruling, Justices Marva McDonald-Bishop, David Fraser, and Kissock Laing cited the trial judge’s failure to properly warn himself about the reliability of the identification evidence and the credibility issues surrounding the prosecution’s sole eyewitness.
According to the appellate judges, this deprived the accused of legal safeguards designed to prevent wrongful convictions based on unreliable testimony.
“We are of the view that the failure of the learned trial judge to adequately warn himself of the dangers inherent in the identification evidence combined with the deficiencies in his treatment of the identification and matters going to the credibility of the prosecution’s sole eyewitness resulted in the applicants being deprived of the safeguards developed by law to prevent the ‘ghastly risk’ of conviction on unreliable evidence of identification,” the judges stated in their ruling.
Dantay Brooks now 22 years old, who was 18 at the time of sentencing, had been ordered to serve 22 years before parole for the murder of Lorenzo Thomas, along with concurrent sentences of 15 years for arson and 20 years for illegal possession of a firearm. Hinds, who was 26, had also been given a life sentence with a 17-year parole stipulation, along with concurrent 15-year sentences for arson and firearm possession.
The prosecution had argued that Brooks and Hinds were part of a group that invaded Thomas’ home in Cassava Piece, St. Andrew, on June 5, 2018, shooting him and setting the house and body on fire. The case relied heavily on the testimony of Thomas’ father, who claimed he recognized the assailants from the community.
Despite the gravity of the original charges, the prosecution did not seek a retrial, acknowledging the judge’s errors. The defense teams, led by attorneys Hugh Wildman for Brooks and Kemar Robinson and Oswest Senior Smith for Hinds, successfully argued that their clients’ convictions were unsafe.
With the appellate court’s ruling, Brooks and Hinds are now free men and a video is now making rounds online of Dantay being greeted by his sister Daniela Brooks, better known as Skye Diamond.
Vybz Kartel, Flexxx, Bounty Killer amongst many other Dancehall artistes have shown support to the release of Dantay online.
