Court upholds conviction in ‘audacious’ murder of Kingston boy
Published:Tuesday | June 17, 2025 | 12:05 AM
The Court of Appeal has upheld the convictions of Orlando ‘Lando’ Neita and Hussain ‘Gully Rat’ Edwards, ruling that there was no miscarriage of justice in their trial for the “audacious” murder of a 17-year-old boy in Kingston in 2011.
In a unanimous 74-page judgment delivered on Friday, the court described the killing of Xavier ‘Josh’ Brown on Rosalie Avenue as “an audacious act of murder”.
Neita and Edwards were convicted on October 9, 2015, following a jury trial and later sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labour, with eligibility for parole after 15 years.
The Court of Appeal, comprising Justices Paulette Williams, Carol Edwards, and Cresencia Brown Beckford (acting), dismissed the appeals and affirmed the convictions. The panel apologised for the delay, as the appeal had been heard between November and December 2021.
The shooting took place around 9 a.m. on March 31, 2011, while the deceased was having a conversation at a cookshop, whose operator was shot and injured. According to the prosecution, four men – including the appellants – entered the premises and opened fire.
A major ground of appeal was that the trial judge mishandled the issue of identification, which was central to the prosecution’s case. The defence argued that the victim-witness did not see Neita long enough to properly identify him as being involved in the crime, and further, that with several men linked to the attack, it was hard to establish recognition.
However, the appellate court found that the judge applied the established Turnbull guidelines, which direct how juries should approach identification evidence. It noted that while the judge did not use the term ‘weakness’ in his summation, the judge highlighted areas that questioned reliability.
The appeal court also noted that there was no requirement for the evidence from one of the witnesses to be corroborated, nor was the judge required to give a special warning regarding the lack of corroboration.
“ The learned judge appropriately left the issue of the correctness of the applicants’ identification to the jury and provided them with the appropriate directions,” it ruled.
The absence of the main witness was also a problem for the appellants.
The Crown applied to admit the injured man’s statements under Section 31D(c) of the Evidence Act, which allows for the admission of evidence from a witness who is outside the jurisdiction and cannot be compelled to attend. The appellants argued that sufficient effort was not made to get the witness to attend the trial. The appellants’ attorneys also argued that hearsay evidence was admitted that violated their clients’ rights. The trial judge had ruled against their complaints.
JUDGE CORRECT
The appeal court said that decision was correct.
“ Once admitted, the learned judge gave the required directions and warning to the jury as to how they should approach the hearsay evidence. Indeed, there is no complaint as to the adequacy of these directions,” it said.
The court also upheld the judge’s directions on joint enterprise liability. The appeal court held that the directions were legally sound and that the concept of a common design was adequately conveyed.
The appellants also complained that the inclusion of prejudicial material – such as references to a “gang war” and the injuries sustained by the main witness – rendered the trial unfair.
But the appeal judges dismissed those complaints.
“ It is hard to understand how this statement can be considered prejudicial ... . The inclusion of these issues into evidence could not be regarded as ‘severely overwhelming, incurably bad, and unfair’ to the applicants,” they said
The court acknowledged that the trial judge made several factual errors during summation, including misnaming witnesses, misstating parts of the question-and-answer documents, and referencing incorrect locations. But it concluded that those issues did not result in any miscarriage of justice.
“ It must be borne in mind that, in any event, it is the jury’s recollection of the facts that matters, not the learned judge’s. The learned judge emphasised this point repeatedly during his summation,” the court reasoned.
Neita and Edwards maintained that they were not present at the scene and provided alibi defences.
The appeal court found that the trial judge gave adequate directions on that point. It agreed that the judge correctly instructed the jury on how to treat the alibi evidence and did not undermine the defence.
“ While it is accepted that the learned judge could have offered more assistance to the jury in analysing the evidence relating to joint enterprise, the omission is not of such gravity as to warrant setting aside the jury’s verdict. Ultimately, there is no sufficient basis on which to disturb the convictions,” the court concluded.
The men did not appeal their sentences. The court noted that their attorneys acknowledged that the life terms with 15-year minimums aligned with the statutory minimums.
Attorneys Oswest Senior-Smith and Kimberly Reynolds-McDermott represented Neita, while Ann-Marie Feurtado-Richards appeared for Hussain Edwards. The prosecution was represented by Andre Wedderburn and Devine White.