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Appeals for trio convicted of murder will be heard next year

By LAMECH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

ljohnson@tribunemedia.net

THE appeals of three men contesting their convictions for the murder of a policeman will not be heard until 2015.

Stephen “Die” Stubbs, Andrew “Yogi” Davis and Clinton “Russ” Evans, who were all sentenced to life in jail for the 1999 murder of Constable Jimmy Ambrose at the now-closed Club Rock Disco, returned to the Court of Appeal for a status report on the trial transcripts that were unavailable at last month’s scheduled substantive hearing.

Justices Stanley John, Abdulai Conteh and Neville Adderley were told by Ian Cargill, lawyer for Davis, that only a week’s worth of the two-month long trial transcripts were in their possession.

This was confirmed by Garvin Gaskin, acting director of public prosecutions. Given the nature of the case, the matter was delayed to February 26, 2015.

The court advised both sides to “get their house in order”.

The Court of Appeal also adjourned the murder appeal of former fugitive Jason Marshall to a date to be announced.

Marshall’s lawyer, Ian Cargill, told the court he had only recently received the transcripts, which he believed to be incomplete.

Darnell Dorsett, Crown respondent, said the trial transcripts were complete. The court agreed.

A jury, in April of this year, accepted the prosecution’s case that Marshall shot Fabian Joffer in 2005 following an argument at a party in Yellow Elder Gardens.

Witnesses claimed that Marshall returned with a 9mm pistol and shot Joffer.

Prosecutors said that Marshall’s flight from the Bahamas to the United States by illegal means was evidence of his guilt.

Marshall was deported from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in February 2011, some five months after being arrested in Philadelphia on an assault charge that stemmed from a fight with another man.

Marshall maintained that he was a victim of mistaken identity.

His lawyer noted at trial that investigators had failed to establish which of the three men named Jason at the party was responsible for the shooting because they did not hold an identification parade.

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