A judge yesterday ordered that two men serve 30-year sentences for their part in the murder of a Deveaux Street man more than three years ago.<\/p>\n
The prosecution did not seek the death penalty for Andre Dieujuste, 29, and Edney Burrows, 27,\u00a0 after\u00a0\u00a0 the jury returned guilty verdicts against them on September 21.<\/p>\n
Christina Galanos made mitigation pleas on behalf of both men, who spent three years in custody awaiting trial, at a sentencing hearing before Senior Supreme Court Justice Jon Isaacs yesterday.<\/p>\n
According to the evidence, Jason Smith, the victim, was intoxicated when he started a fight because he did not want the men parked in front of his home on Deveaux Street on September 13, 2008.<\/p>\n
Galanos said Smith\u2019s death was not premeditated.<\/p>\n
Addressing the court on behalf of Burrows, who was also convicted of the attempted murder of Smith\u2019s girlfriend, Tamara Smith, Galanos said the deceased approached Burrows \u201cin a hostile and aggressive manner before the fight ensued\u201d.<\/p>\n
She noted that none of Burrows\u2019 three previous convictions involved violence against anyone.\u00a0 She said that Burrows surrendered to police following the incident.<\/p>\n
On the attempted murder charge, she asked the court to consider that Ms. Smith provoked Burrows when she threw a bottle at him, which shattered across his face.\u00a0 She said Burrows believed that he was defending himself against attacks by the Smiths.<\/p>\n
She said Burrows surrendered to police before he sought medical attention for his own injuries.<\/p>\n
As for Dieujuste, Galanos said he had an unblemished criminal record until the jury\u2019s verdict.<\/p>\n
She said on the evidence, Dieujuste chopped Smith once with a cutlass. She said Dieujuste had attempted to convince Smith to go home and relax.<\/p>\n
Justice Isaacs imposed a 20-year sentence on Burrows for the attempted murder of Ms. Smith that will run concurrently with the 30-year sentence on the murder charge<\/p>\n
Galanos said she plans appeals against both the sentences and the convictions.<\/p>\n
Jillian\u2008Williams prosecuted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A judge Monday ordered that two men serve 30-year sentences for their part in the murder of a Deveaux Street man more than three years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[32,31],"class_list":["post-13788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-courts","tag-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13788\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}