Winston Alexander v The Queen

• Jurisdiction: Caribbean States
• Judge: Mr Justice Saunders,Anderson,Barrow,Burgess,Jamadar,Mr Justice D Barrow
• Judgment Date: 23 July 2020
• Court: Caribbean Court of Justice (Appellate Jurisdiction)
• Docket Number: CCJ Application No. BBCR2020/001
• Date: 23 July 2020

IN THE CARIBBEAN COURT OF JUSTICE

Appellate Jurisdiction

Before

the Honourables: Mr Justice A Saunders, PCCJ

Mr. Justice W Anderson, JCCJ

Mr Justice D Barrow, JCCJ

Mr Justice A Burgess, JCCJ

Mr Justice P Jamadar, JCCJ

CCJ Application No. BBCR2020/001

BB Criminal Appeal No. 6 of 2012

Between

Winston Alexander

Applicant

and

The Queen

Respondent

Appearances

Mr Bryan L Weekes for the Applicant

Mrs Donna C B Babb-Agard QC and Ms Krystal Delaney for the Respondent

REASONS FOR DECISION of The Honourable Mr Justice Saunders , President and the Honourable Justices Anderson, Barrow, Burgess and Jamadar

Delivered by The Honourable Mr Justice D Barrow on the 23rd day of July 2020

1 The Court refused the application by Mr Winston Alexander for special leave to appeal his murder conviction after a virtual hearing on 16 July 2020, with reasons to follow.

2 It was only one of the five grounds that the applicant wished to argue on appeal that the Court fully considered to decide if the applicant had an arguable case. This was because the applicant was proposing to be permitted to argue grounds which did not arise out of the decision of the Court of Appeal. But, as indicated to counsel for the applicant, an appeal to this Court lies from a decision of the Court of Appeal; it does not lie from the decision of the trial court. 1 As this Court stated in Andrew Lovell v The Queen 2, an appellant must bring to the Court of Appeal the whole case he has and will not be allowed to bring different aspects of his case before different appellate tribunals. The Court will treat the attempt to do so as an abuse of process unless there are exceptional reasons for doing otherwise and it would be a miscarriage of justice to refuse to permit the new ground to be argued. In the present case, this Court considered the new grounds and was satisfied there was no potential miscarriage of justice in refusing to permit the applicant to rely on them as proposed grounds of appeal.

3 The sole ground, then, on which the application was permitted to proceed was that the Court of Appeal erred in not allowing the appeal and setting aside the conviction for murder; that court having found that the trial judge did not properly direct the jury on the defence of accident. The Court of Appeal had accepted that the trial judge had not given a full direction on the defence of accident. Instead of allowing the appeal, however, the Court of Appeal applied the provision in section 4(2) of the Criminal Appeal Act Chapter 113A, commonly called ‘the proviso’ by lawyers for historical reasons, which reads: ‘the Court may, notwithstanding that it is of the opinion that the point raised in the appeal might be decided in favour of the appellant, dismiss the appeal if it considers that no substantial miscarriage of justice has actually occurred.’

4 This Court was satisfied that the applicant did not have an arguable case that the Court of Appeal erred in applying the proviso. The...