Murderer gets a 35-year prison sentence

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Convicted murderer Codayro Joseph was this morning sentenced to  35 years in jail for gunning down Coldrick Lewis on Father’s Day in 2011.
This was the sentence of High Court Justice Keith Thom, despite a plea from his lawyer Sherfield Bowen for leniency given Lewis’ youthfulness and troubled childhood.
Bowen told the court his client was 20 years old at the time of the incident and he had been kicked out of several schools.
The judge ordered that his sentence is to be reviewed after 20 years and if he is not eligible for release at that time, it is to be reviewed every three years thereafter.
He also said his client didn’t go to Clary’s Bar on June 19, 2011 to kill. He said his client went to rob.
Justice Thom said he was concerned about the convict’s unapologetic stance and the fact he went with a loaded gun.
The judge noted that despite Joseph’s troubled childhood, a psychiatric evaluation did not find any major psychological or mental condition that impacted his judgement.
BACKGROUND
A unanimous verdict of guilty was declared in April this year for murder accused Codayro Joseph, nearly six years after he gunned down Coldrick Lewis, 52, while robbing Clary’s Bar in the Fort Road area on Father’s Day, 2011.
During the trial of the 26 year old, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Anthony Armstrong presented several pieces of evidence which he told the jury pointed directly to Joseph being the robber and killer that night.
The evidence included gunshot residue (GSR), which was found on both his hands and his face, and according to a firearm expert who testified, that amount could not have been transferred by a handshake or contamination.
The expert said it must have been because the accused fired the weapon or handled it immediately after it was fired. Another key piece of evidence was a gold ring which Joseph was found with when he was arrested within an hour after the murder and robbery.
The ring belonged to one of the patrons who was robbed at Clary’s Bar. While Joseph’s lawyer Sherfield Bowen said the ring was his client’s and it was on his chain, the DPP said photographs of Joseph which were taken soon after he was taken into custody show something else. In those photographs shared with the jury, the accused was wearing a chain but the ring was not on it. And, the ring was later identified by its owner.
His lawyer had also contended that the scratches on his body were caused by the police dragging him on the ground when they arrested him, but the DPP said those injuries were more consistent with scratches from going through the prickly bushes. Witnesses had said the robber ran into the bushes in the area after the incident.

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