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Monday, June 16, 2025

Appeal Court quashes 12-year jail sentence

by

20101021

A man serv­ing a 12-year prison sen­tence for rob­bery of­fences, had his con­vic­tion quashed yes­ter­day by the Court of Ap­peal. In an oral de­ci­sion, Jus­tice Ra­jen­dra Nar­ine said be­cause of the age of the mat­ter, span­ning close to 17 years, there should be no re­tri­al for Har­ry Estra­da. Estra­da, of Dor­ra­ta Street, Mor­vant, was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Jagdeo Singh. The Ap­peal Court, al­so com­pris­ing Jus­tices Paula Mae Weekes and Al­ice Yorke-Soo Hon, ruled that the con­vic­tion was un­safe as the ap­pel­lant's coun­sel at tri­al had not put the is­sue of "good char­ac­ter" ev­i­dence to the ju­ry.

Singh, who made the sub­mis­sion, con­tend­ed that the is­sue should have been put to the ju­ry es­pe­cial­ly in light of the fact that "bad char­ac­ter" ev­i­dence had al­ready been put to the ju­ry. Singh not­ed, too, that al­though Estra­da's coun­sel "failed in his du­ty," tri­al judge Jus­tice Melville Baird should have di­rect­ed the ju­ry ac­cord­ing­ly. "In these cir­cum­stances, it was clear that the ap­pel­lant's coun­sel knew that the ap­pel­lant was a man of good char­ac­ter and failed to put that ev­i­dence be­fore the ju­ry," Singh sub­mit­ted. "It is al­so clear that the learned tri­al judge would have been aware of this and al­so failed to put the ap­pro­pri­ate di­rec­tions to the ju­ry."

Estra­da was con­vict­ed in the Port-of-Spain High Court, and on Ju­ly 5, 2010, was sen­tenced to 12 years' im­pris­on­ment on charges of rob­bery with ag­gra­va­tion and rob­bery with vi­o­lence. He was charged with rob­bing the Young fam­i­ly in Barataria of sev­er­al elec­tron­ic items and the sum of $500 was tak­en from the hand­bag of one of the oc­cu­pants of the home. The in­ci­dent was al­leged to have oc­curred on June 19, 1993. Estra­da tes­ti­fied that on the night of the al­leged in­ci­dent, he had gone to a par­ty in South Oropouche. His girl­friend had tes­ti­fied that he was so drunk that he had a hang­over the next day. Joan Hon­ore-Paul made sub­mis­sions on be­half of the State. (IS)


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