Manslaughter appeal dismissed

Wyatt Anderson

The second appellant was thirty-two year old Wyatt Anderson, who was convicted of Manslaughter on February third, 2011.  Anderson was accused of fatally stabbing his brother-in-law, Robert Brown on November twenty-second, 2008. Anderson was sentenced to fourteen years in by Justice Adolph Lucas. But he appealed on the grounds that the trial judge erred in law when he allowed the case to go to the jury after the close of the prosecution and did not allow a no-case submission to be presented when the prosecution failed to prove that Anderson intentionally killed Brown. His attorney, Kevin Arthurs, argued that Judge Lucas gave inadequate directions to the jury on how to treat Anderson’s caution statement. The D.P.P., Cheryl-Lynn Vidal, countered saying that the prosecution had sufficient evidence for the jury to properly convict Anderson and that the judge was legally grounded in sending the case to the jury for determination.  She also submitted that the usual directions were unnecessary in this case because the appellant had not objected to the tendering of the caution statement and that he had repeated the contents in his unsworn evidence. Anderson’s appeal was also dismissed and he will spend the full fourteen years in prison.