{"id":318802,"date":"2024-03-11T08:00:46","date_gmt":"2024-03-11T12:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/?p=318802"},"modified":"2024-03-10T21:50:21","modified_gmt":"2024-03-11T01:50:21","slug":"ccj-upholds-the-court-of-appeal-decision-of-a-murder-conviction-in-belizean-appeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/homepage\/homepage-carousel\/ccj-upholds-the-court-of-appeal-decision-of-a-murder-conviction-in-belizean-appeal\/","title":{"rendered":"CCJ upholds the Court of Appeal decision of a murder conviction in Belizean appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.\u00a0On Friday, 8th<\/sup>\u00a0March 2024, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in its Appellate Jurisdiction delivered judgment in the appeal\u00a0Nevis Betancourt v The King\u00a0[2024] CCJ 6 (AJ) BZ. The CCJ upheld the Court of Appeal’s decision to affirm the murder conviction.<\/p>\n

This was an appeal by Nevis Betancourt (Betancourt) against his conviction for the murder of Jose Castellanos (Castellanos). Betancourt was indicted and tried, without a jury, for Castellanos\u2019 murder. In January 2020, Betancourt was convicted and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction and sentence. Betancourt appealed further to the CCJ against the Court of Appeal\u2019s decision to uphold the trial judge\u2019s rejection of the defence of self-defence alleging that a) the trial judge erred in failing to take all relevant matters into account in determining whether Betancourt had an intention to kill, and b) the trial judge failed to properly review and evaluate the evidence of three prosecution witnesses.<\/p>\n

At trial, the judge accepted the case for the prosecution which was that Betancourt entered the restaurant where Castellanos had been sitting and shot him twice before Castellanos chopped him with a machete. Betancourt continued shooting at Castellanos who exited the restaurant and thereafter died. At trial, Betancourt gave evidence that Castellanos chopped him unprovoked, which led him to draw his licensed firearm and shoot Castellanos in self-defence. The trial judge rejected this evidence as it was inconsistent with the rest of the evidence of the eyewitnesses and the forensic evidence.<\/p>\n

At the CCJ, Betancourt\u2019s attorneys argued that after rejecting the defendant\u2019s evidence, the trial judge had a duty to apply the principles of self-defence to a third version of the incident. That third version was based on a main witness\u2019 reply to a question in cross examination.<\/p>\n

In the lead judgment, Justice Denys Barrow (with Justices Rajnauth-Lee, Burgess, and Jamadar concurring) noted that prior to the witness\u2019 single inconsistent response during cross examination, there were five other times during examination in chief and cross examination when the same witness gave a consistent account of the sequence of events. In those five instances, the witness said that Castellanos was shot first before he chopped Betancourt. Justice Barrow held that the witness\u2019 misstatement was corrected in re-examination. Given the effect of re-examination, the statement did not form part of the evidence that was accepted as the true version of events and, as such, there was no third version of events. Justice Barrow also reinforced that there was no obligation on the trial judge to single out the purported third version of events and express that she rejected it.<\/p>\n

Justice Winston Anderson in his concurring judgment, also agreed that the appeal should be dismissed. Justice Anderson emphasised that the trial judge was not under an obligation to extract a third version of the incident and subject it to a discrete recount and analysis. It was also stressed that the re-examination was in line with the relevant legislation and after re-examination, the witness\u2019 evidence, read in its entirety, supported the case for the prosecution.<\/p>\n

The CCJ dismissed the appeal and the decisions of the Court of Appeal of Belize, and the trial judge were upheld.<\/p>\n

The matter was heard by the Honourable Justices Anderson, Rajnauth-Lee, Barrow, Burgess, and Jamadar.\u00a0Mr. Rajiv Persaud, SC, Ms. Sheena Pitts and Ms. Karunaa Bisramsingh appeared for the Appellant. Mrs. Cheryl-Lyn Vidal, SC, and Mrs. Jacqueline Cheeseman appeared for the\u00a0Respondent.<\/p>\n

The CCJ\u2019s full judgment is available via\u00a0www.ccj.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

About the Caribbean Court of Justice<\/em><\/p>\n

The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) was inaugurated in Port of Spain, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago on 16 April 2005 and presently has a Bench of seven judges presided over by CCJ President, the Honourable Mr Justice Adrian Saunders. The CCJ has an Original and an Appellate Jurisdiction and is effectively, therefore, two courts in one. In its Original Jurisdiction, it is an international court with exclusive jurisdiction to interpret and apply the rules set out in the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas (RTC) and to decide disputes arising under it. The RTC established the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME). In its Original Jurisdiction, the CCJ is critical to the CSME and all 12 Member States which belong to the CSME (including their citizens, businesses, and governments) can access the Court\u2019s Original Jurisdiction to protect their rights under the RTC. In its Appellate Jurisdiction, the CCJ is the final court of appeal for criminal and civil matters for those countries in the Caribbean that alter their national Constitutions to enable the CCJ to perform that role. At present, five states access the Court in its Appellate Jurisdiction, these being Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Guyana and Saint Lucia. However, by signing and ratifying the Agreement Establishing the Caribbean Court of Justice, Member States of the Community have demonstrated a commitment to making the CCJ their final court of appeal. The Court is the realisation of a vision of our ancestors, an expression of independence and a signal of the region\u2019s coming of age<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.\u00a0On Friday, 8th\u00a0March 2024, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in its Appellate Jurisdiction delivered judgment in the appeal\u00a0Nevis Betancourt v The King\u00a0[2024] CCJ 6 (AJ) BZ. The CCJ upheld the Court of Appeal’s decision…","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":293108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,301,235,9,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-318802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime-court-law","category-death","category-homepage-carousel","category-news","category-regional"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCCJ upholds the Court of Appeal decision of a murder conviction in Belizean appeal - Dominica News Online<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/homepage\/homepage-carousel\/ccj-upholds-the-court-of-appeal-decision-of-a-murder-conviction-in-belizean-appeal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"CCJ upholds the Court of Appeal decision of a murder conviction in Belizean appeal - Dominica News Online\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.\u00a0On Friday, 8th\u00a0March 2024, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in its Appellate Jurisdiction delivered judgment in the appeal\u00a0Nevis Betancourt v The King\u00a0[2024] CCJ 6 (AJ) BZ. 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