COSTLY WAIT - 15-month delay for trial transcript derails Crown’s sentence appeal for missionaries’ killer

A 15-month transcript delay has cost the Crown its chance to challenge the 26-year minimum term before parole imposed on Andre Thomas for the 2016 killing of two American missionaries in St Mary.

The Court of Appeal last month ruled that the Crown’s appeal against the sentence was statute-barred because it was not heard within the 12 months prescribed by law.

The court also rejected a subsequent attempt by the prosecution to revive the matter by filing a renewed application for leave to appeal.

The case is one of the significant early tests of the Crown’s limited statutory right to appeal sentences, introduced in 2021 as part of major changes to Jamaica’s criminal justice system via amendments to the Judicature (Appellate Jurisdiction) (Amendment) Act and the Judicature (Parish Courts) (Amendment) Act.

The St Mary labourer was convicted of two counts of murder on July 27, 2023, following a 19-day jury trial in the Home Circuit Court before Justice Leighton Pusey.

He was sentenced on November 10, 2023, to two concurrent life sentences, with a minimum of 26 years at hard labour before becoming eligible for parole.

Thomas’ cousin, 32-year-old Dwight Henry, the prosecution’s key witness, had earlier pleaded guilty to the murders under a plea deal and was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a stipulation that he serve 28 years in prison before becoming eligible for parole.

The bodies of American missionaries Harold Nichols and Randy Hentzel were found in Wentworth district, St Mary, on April 30 and May 1, 2016, respectively.

Hentzel was found with his hands bound and a gunshot wound to his head, while Nichols was discovered with a gunshot wound to the chest and six chop wounds to the head.

Six days after Thomas’ sentence was handed down, the Crown filed an application for leave to appeal, arguing that the sentence was manifestly inadequate or unduly lenient.

But the transcript of the trial did not reach the Court of Appeal until February 15, 2025.

By then, the 12-month period within which the appeal was required to be heard had long expired.

Writing for the three-member Court of Appeal panel, Justice Paulette Williams said the legislation governing prosecution appeals was clear and left little room for flexibility.

The court noted that the Crown’s application had been filed within the required 14-day period.

However, the delay in obtaining the transcript meant that the appeal could not be dealt with within the statutory timeframe.

A single judge of the Court of Appeal eventually granted the Crown leave to appeal the sentence on July 14, 2025.

However, when the matter came before the full court on October 9, 2025, the judges questioned whether the statutory requirements had been satisfied and adjourned the matter for both parties to provide submissions on the import of the provisions.

Shortly after, the Crown filed a renewed notice of application for leave, with an affidavit from Crown Counsel Nyron Wright, in which the Crown acknowledged that the 12-month deadline had not been met and that the appeal was therefore out of time.

It nevertheless sought to pursue the appeal, arguing that it was in the public interest for the sentence to be reviewed as denying the opportunity to have the appeal heard in these circumstances would be inimical to the public interest.

The prosecution maintained that there were arguable grounds that Thomas’s sentence was manifestly inadequate or unduly lenient and that allowing the appeal to proceed would protect public confidence in the justice system, particularly in relation to plea agreements.

It also argued that there was nothing in the law restricting the Crown from renewing its application and that neither would “the respondent be unduly prejudiced by the delay in the hearing of the appeal nor would he be unduly prejudiced if the orders sought in the renewed application were granted”.

Defence attorney Leroy Equiano, in his submissions, argued that the strict time limits were deliberately built into the legislation to protect convicted persons from prolonged uncertainty over their punishment.

He said delays in the criminal justice system could affect an accused person’s constitutional right to a fair trial within a reasonable time and submitted that the 12-month deadline for hearing a prosecution appeal should, therefore, be strictly enforced.

Equiano also pointed out that the legislation gives the court no discretion to extend that period.

Following deliberation, Justice Williams said the Crown could not use a renewed application to effectively restart the statutory clock.

“Where time limits are prescribed by statute, a court cannot extend that time unless the statute gives the power to do so,” she said.

She added that the failure to comply with the statutory requirements went to the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeal to entertain the appeal.

The judges acknowledged that the Crown could not be blamed for the subsequent delay in the application being considered.

“The consequences which inevitably flow from the delay cannot be ignored and evaded with the filing of a renewed application,” the court said.

The court also rejected the Crown’s reliance on the overriding objective of dealing with cases justly and on their merits.

Justice Williams said that principle could not be used to get around the clear provisions of the legislation.

“There are no rules which require interpretation in this matter,” she said, adding that Section 18A of the legislation was clear and required no interpretation.

The court also emphasised the reason for the statutory deadline: certainty for convicted persons about the punishment they face.

The court struck out the appeal and refused the renewed application filed on October 16, 2025.

Thomas’s 26-year minimum sentence remains in force and is reckoned to have commenced on November 10, 2023, the date it was imposed.

In the meantime, Thomas has also appealed his conviction and sentence. Although a single judge refused his application, he renewed it on July 24, 2025, and that appeal is still awaiting a hearing before the Court of Appeal.

Prosecutors Rennel Morgan and Dwayne Green also appeared for the Crown.

tanesha.mundle@gleanerjm.com