Lesmond v The Queen (No. 2)

• Jurisdiction: St Lucia
• Judge: Lewis, C.J.
• Judgment Date: 03 October 1967
• Neutral Citation: LC 1967 CA 5
• Date: 03 October 1967
• Court: Court of Appeal (Saint Lucia)
• Docket Number: Criminal Appeal No. 1 of 1966

Court of Appeal

Lewis, C.J.; Gordon, J.A.; Lewis, J.A.

Criminal Appeal No. 1 of 1966

Lesmond

and

The Queen (No. 2)

Appearances:

K. Foster for appellant-applicant

J.D.B. Renwick (Attorney General) for the Crown

Practice and procedure - Application for leave to appeal against conviction of murder — Whether Court made it clear that grounds of appeal which were law alone and mixed law and fact were dismissed.

Lewis, C.J.

1 This is an application by the appellant Kenrick Lesmond that the Court should, as he alleges has not been done, hear the appeal against his conviction for murder on the 19th October, 1966.

2 The appellant filed a notice of appeal or application for leave to appeal against conviction, which is dated 28th October, 1966. That application was never considered by a single judge and when this Court began to operate in April 1966, it found the case waiting to be heard and determined. Since it was a murder case, and the Court in such cases always either grants leave to appeal or hears the application itself as fully constituted, the Court decided that it would deal with it promptly.

3 The grounds of appeal raised questions which were in part questions of law alone, in part questions of mixed law and fact, and in part questions of fact alone. As is usual in these cases, the matter came before the Court as an application for leave to appeal. According to the practice which this Court and the predecessor Courts, the British Caribbean Court of Appeal and the Federal Supreme Court, have developed, the Court heard full argument both on the grounds which involved questions of law alone, and on all other grounds which counsel for the appellant wished to advance. The Court at the hearing gave leave to learned counsel to argue three additional grounds, one of which involved a pure question of law, namely that there was a misdirection as to the burden of proof.

4 Having heard full argument on all the grounds advanced, except two which were abandoned, the Court then delivered an oral judgment. In its judgment, the Court dealt with every ground which had been argued and said in effect that it did not consider those not specifically mentioned to be of any merit whatsoever. Particularly, the Court considered most carefully the question raised in the additional ground with regard to the burden of proof. The Court came to the conclusion that none of the grounds which had been advanced was a ground of...