Georgetown: Evidence presented against the two accused in the Sade Stoby murder trial Tuesday after which the mixed jury panel will be sent to deliberate on a verdict.
Justice Navindra Singh is the presiding judge. Justice Singh will sum up all the evidence in the case and explain and guide the jury on elements of the law which they have to follow while deliberating on a verdict. The jury can return several possible verdicts.
They can find both accused guilty or both not guilty of the indicted offence. The jury can also find only one accused guilty and the other not guilty. For these verdicts, the decision has to be unanimous. If the decision is not unanimous and the panel cannot arrive at a verdict after further deliberations, then it will result in a hung jury; hence, there will have to be a retrial.
However, the panel can also find both accused not guilty of murder, but guilty to the lesser count of manslaughter, and for this, a unanimous verdict is not required as long as there is a higher guilty to not guilty ratio among the jurors.
Jevon Wharton, 23, and Colwyn Charles Cush, 21, are indicted with the murder of the nine-year-old. The State is claiming that the two accused raped Stoby before killing her on November 2, 2007 at Barnwell, North Mocha Arcadia, East Bank Demerara.
On Monday’s date, defence attorneys, Raymond Ali for Wharton and George Thomas for Cush, made their closing arguments before the jury panel. Attorney Ali argued that his client was nowhere near the scene of the crime, but was at work, which was attested by the two witnesses called by the defence.
Meanwhile, Attorney Thomas claimed that his client was beaten; hence, he sustained injuries on his penis, which caused the Police to institute charges against him.
He further pointed out that his client could not have gotten an erection according to his mother, who testified that she used to play with his penis and make fun of him because of that.
However in response, State Counsel Judith Gildharie-Mursalin argued that if Cush knew he could not have gotten an erection, why did he “try” to force his penis in the young girl’s vagina. Further, she noted that the accused mother should be charged for sexual assault for admitting that she used play with her son’s genitals at the age of 14 years.
As it relates to Wharton, Mursalin highlighted that the two defence witnesses could have only accounted for up to when he left work around 15:30h, but not afterwards.
She added that it is possible that Wharton could have gone to the Aquaduck Bridge at Sixth Field, where he and the number two accused raped Stoby.
The State Counsel noted that this theory could be supported by the fact that State Pathologist, Dr Nehaul Singh, had put the time of death of the nine-year-old to approximately 36 hours from the post-mortem, which was done on the Monday following her disappearance on the Friday before. Her body was discovered the Sunday.
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