Finding that the life sentence imposed against him for the offence of felonious wounding to be too severe, the Court of Appeal has set that aside, substituting it with a sentence of nine years against Andy Boodram.
Back in 2018, Justice Navindra Singh had sentenced Boodram to life in prison, for severely wounding his neighbour Deonarine Persaud, who had asked him to turn down the volume of the music he was playing.
Boodram had been indicted for attempted murder for which a jury found him not guilty; but convicted him on the alternative count of felonious wounding. The panel found that he was guilty of wounding Persaud on September 24th, 2011, with intent to maim, disfigure, disable or cause him serious bodily harm.
He later appealed, arguing among other things that the sentence imposed by Justice Singh was too harsh.
In delivering the ruling yesterday morning, Chancellor Yonette Cummings-Edwards (ag) said the Court found, as argued by counsel for Boodram (the Appellant), that the trial judge’s sentence went against established sentencing guidelines.
She noted that a sentence of life was reserved for offences of a category considered to be “the worst of the worst,” pointing to murder and manslaughter as examples.
Against this background, the Chancellor said that an appellate court would not merely interfere with the sentence of a lower court because it thinks that a different sentence should have been imposed.
Rather, she said that an intervention by the court above is warranted—as in Boodram’s case—if there had not been conformity with guidelines for ensuring that a sentence is fair and just.
In deference to case-law precedent, and after considering all the aggravating and mitigating factors of the case which the Court said the trial judge from the records; seem not to have taken account of, Chancellor Cummings-Edwards noted that the sentence of life was too excessive for the offence Boodram was convicted of.
In all the circumstances, the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal on the ground of sentence, set aside the life sentence and instead imposed a sentence of nine years; with the further order that deductions, be made for the time he has already served.
Boodram was sentenced in March of 2018.
While the Court allowed his appeal on the issue of sentencing, however; it dismissed his appeal of the conviction, stating that the grounds raised challenging this, substantiated no miscarriage of justice.
The Chancellor said that contrary to advancements made by the Appellant, the trial judge had fairly and adequately put his case to the jury; which was given sufficient directions by the trial judge on how to treat with the various issues presented in the case.
She noted that therefrom, the jury, as the sole judges of the facts, would have arrived at the verdict it did.
Background
Boodram had appeared visibly shocked when Justice Singh had announced the life sentence.
When he had been given a chance to speak, the convict told the court that he was in a fight with the complainant, Persaud, called ‘Anil,’ but maintained that he never chopped him.
“It was a fight, but I didn’t chop Anil,” the convict had said, while casting the blame on someone else, whom he claimed to have also been a part of the fight.
In his testimony, Persaud had recalled being chopped several times by Boodram, whom he had asked to lower his music as his sick infant son had been sleeping at the time.
Despite repeated appeals, however, the witness said Boodram, hurled a series of expletives at him and refused to lower the volume of the music.
Persaud had told the court that as he stood conversing with a friend in front of his yard, he heard the friend exclaim, “Anil run! Boy coming with a cutlass!”
He had said he did not run at that time and just as he turned towards the direction from which his attacker was coming, he encountered the man swinging a cutlass in front of him.
In the midst of inflicting numerous broadsides, Persaud said that Boodram chopped him twice on the head and once to his left thumb as he tried to bar the chops.
Persaud said he fell to the ground and remembered clearly seeing the accused standing over, and still broadsiding him, moments before losing consciousness. He later woke in the Georgetown Public Hospital.
He recalled being hospitalised for some six months, during which time he had to undergo several surgeries and had to do numerous follow-up treatments.
The defence had contended, however, that it was Boodram who was attacked by Persaud and another person.
According to defence attorney George Thomas, the other person in whose company Persaud was at the time, had been wielding the cutlass at Boodram but it missed and connected with Persaud instead, resulting in the injuries he sustained.
Under cross-examination, the complainant had disagreed with counsel’s suggestion that it was a fight and that he was injured during a scuffle.
He had also disagreed with Thomas’ suggestion that he was armed and that he was “making up the story” maintaining that it was Boodram who had chopped him.
