By LAMECH JOHNSON
Tribune Staff Reporter
ljohnson@tribunemedia.net
A MAN contesting his conviction for the paid execution of a banker will have his appeal heard in seven weeks.
Janaldo Farrington, 26, appeared in the Court of Appeal for a status hearing concerning his challenge to a jury’s verdict concerning the murder of Stephen Sherman five years ago.
His lawyer Murrio Ducille confirmed to Justices Dame Anita Allen, Stella Crane-Scott and Roy Jones that the matter was ready to proceed as skeletal submissions had been filed and only a date needed to be fixed.
The substantive appeal hearing was adjourned to April 12. Justice Jones will not be hearing the matter, as he was the trial judge in Farrington’s case.
Sherman, an assistant manager at the Royal Bank of Canada in Palmdale, was shot in the head when he pulled up to his Yamacraw Shores home on the evening of February 17, 2012.
He was robbed of his cell phone before being shot. His niece, who was in the car with him, was also robbed.
Renee Sherman, the victim’s wife, along with Farrington and Cordero Bethel, both of Pinewood Gardens, were charged with conspiring to commit murder.
Farrington and Bethel were also charged with Sherman’s murder and two counts of armed robbery while the widow was charged with aiding and abetting the murder of her husband. All three denied the charges.
During trial, the widow and Bethel were acquitted of their respective charges on the direction of the judge, leaving only Farrington to answer to the charges against him because of a confession that he gave to the police on February 24, 2012.
On October 8, 2013, before excusing the jury to deliberate on a verdict for the four counts Farrington faced, Justice Jones told the 12-member jury that “the case stands and falls on your acceptance or rejection of the confession statement”.
Having deliberated on the evidence in the case for three hours, the jury returned with the unanimous guilty verdicts on the two charges and a third charge of armed robbery concerning Sherman.
The jury was split 8-4 on the other armed robbery charge concerning Sherman’s niece, but the majority guilty verdict was accepted.
In May, 2014, Farrington was sentenced to life imprisonment for the killing.
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