According to a judgment delivered by the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal dated March 7, 2023, Devon Jermaine Anglin, who was sentenced to prison for the shooting of Carlo Webster, was refused leave to appeal to reduce his 30-year sentence.
Based on the judgment, Anglin sought the Court’s leave to admit as fresh evidence the opinion of Dr Marc Lockhart, a psychiatrist from Behavioural Health Associates Cayman, and that of Dr Liezel Anguelova, a psychologist, that at the time he shot the deceased on September 10, 2009, he had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (“PTSD”) and/or the effects of brain damage as a result of a machete attack.
As a consequence of the PTSD and/or brain damage, the court documents described the view of Dr Lockhart that Anglin “lost control of his ability to restrain himself.”
In addition, court documents state that Anglin sought to “rely upon the “Neurology Expert Review” of Assistant Clinical Professor Kaplan of NY Neurology Associates.”
In response to the foregoing, the Court said:
Professor Kaplan’s report does not in our view support the opinion that traumatic brain injury following the machete attack played any part in the murder. The brain injury was mild. There was no evidence of structural damage. Any damage would be expected to improve. Nothing said by Professor Kaplan suggested brain damage played any part in these events. Psychometric testing suggested there was no brain damage.
The Court added:
In the result, we agree with Professor Myers’ opinion. We agree that the Applicant’s ‘anti-social behaviours,’ evident from a young age, were consistent with the murder being driven by the combined effects of an anti-social personality disorder and substance abuse. We do not accept that PTSD or brain damage played a part in the murder. We are driven to conclude that the Applicant has sought to construct a spurious case in order, in the first instance, to found the basis of a second appeal against conviction and, that having failed, to seek a reduction in sentence.
The Court concluded:
There is nothing in the youth of the Applicant or the remaining medical evidence to justify a reduction in sentence.
In our judgment the Chief Justice was plainly entitled to conclude there was no reason to interfere with the statutory minimum of 30 years. In all the circumstances, we refuse the Applicant leave to appeal.
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