A convicted murderer who shot dead a man in a George Town nightclub in 2009 has had his appeal of his 30-year sentence refused by the Court of Appeal Tuesday, 7 March.
Devon Jermaine Anglin claimed that at the time of the 2009 killing of Carlo Webster, he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and/or brain damage after being struck by a machete in 2005.
However, Court of Appeal president Sir John Goldring, in a statement read out by Acting Justice Marlene Carter in court, said it was not a “spur of the moment offence” and was a “deliberate murder”.
Anglin fired three shots at Webster, 35, at near-point-blank range in Next Level Nightclub on 10 Sept. 2009 – one at his head and twice at his body – killing him instantly.
A second man, Christopher Solomon, was accidentally shot in the torso during the same incident.
Anglin opted for trial without jury, and appeared before former Chief Justice Anthony Smellie in December 2011. He was found guilty in January 2012 and sentenced to life in prison.
However, under the subsequent Conditional Release Law, 2014, when passing a life sentence, judges had to specify the number of years in prison before the possibility of conditional release.
Murder convictions were ordered to carry a sentence of 30 years, subject to aggravating or extenuating circumstance that could raise or lower the sentence.
As a result of the new law, the chief justice, on 9 Feb. 2018, then handed down a sentence of 30 years for the murder.
In subsequent years, Anglin sought unsuccessfully to have his conviction overturned by the Court of Appeal.
‘Underlying trauma’
During his most recent appearance at the appeals court, Anglin, represented by Ben Tonner KC, offered evidence from psychiatrist Dr. Marc Lockhart and psychologist Dr. Liezel Anguelova, who said Anglin suffered from “underlying trauma” from the machete attack.
This resulted in PTSD and affected his brain, they said, and as a result, he was unable to adequately manage his impulses during the murder.
During the appeal, the Crown relied on Wade C. Myers III, chief of the Division of Forensic Psychiatry at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in the US.
His primary diagnosis was that at the time of the killing, Anglin had anti-social personality disorder evidenced by a history of disregard for and violation of the rights of others.
Myers’s opinion was that any trauma was resolved by September 2009 and played no part in the killing.
‘Wholly inconsistent’
Goldring explained that it had been Smellie’s view that the murder was a “cold-blooded act of retribution” following an altercation at the nightclub.
“The applicant only admitted he was the gunman years after the event,” the statement said, and, after his two attempts at appeal, “he had changed his tack”.
He concluded by saying the fresh account of the shooting is inconsistent with what Anglin had previously said and “wholly inconsistent” with the evidence.
“It is, as it seems to us, a deliberate attempt by the applicant to reduce his culpability for the murder and advance his case for the purposes of appeal.”
Anglin intends to apply to have his appeal heard by the Privy Council.
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