AFTER deliberating for over four hours on Friday at the Demerara Assizes, a mixed jury in the North West District murder trial failed to arrive at a verdict regarding 48-year-old murder accused, Morris Roberts, called ‘Moses’.

Consequently, Moses was remanded to prison by Justice Navindra Singh and ordered to face a retrial at a practicable criminal session of the Assizes.
Evidence by the prosecution disclosed that the accused and others were working in the North West District on 16th of August, 2009, without pay but were provided with free alcohol, cigarettes and food.
The accused Morris Roberts and Milton Daniels, 48, now deceased were among those present, fetching timber, among other things. It is said that they were imbibing high wine and that they were in a drunken state, talking, chatting and teasing one another.
Witnesses testified that Daniels was sitting on a chair when the accused who was annoyed by the taunts, picked up a piece of wood with which he dealt Daniels three blows, causing him to die later from a fractured skull.
But in a statement from the dock, the accused represented by Attorney-at-law, Mr. Keavan Bess, demonstrated how that night Daniels punched him causing him to fall dazed to the ground, then Daniels stamped him in the stomach. While he was still lying on the ground his hand came in touch with a piece of wood. And as he managed to get on his feet he struck Daniels with the piece of wood and ran away, because he was fearful for his life.
Defence counsel, noting that the witnesses had said that they had seen the accused strike Daniels three times, told the judge it was important to let the jury know that the doctor’s findings which referred to a single injury had supported the accused’s one blow story.
The jury after deliberating for over three hours returned to the court room that afternoon for further directions from the judge, on murder, self-defence, manslaughter and provocation.
The judge gave the directions sought and the jury left to continue their deliberations but returned 30 minutes later and announced that they could not reach a verdict. With murder the verdict had to be unanimous one way or the other and as this was not to be, the result was a hung jury.
When told that he would have to face a retrial, Roberts looked skywards as he was being taken from the dock in handcuffs to the prison to await his retrial.
Leading the case for the prosecution were state counsels Teshana Lake and Natasha Backer.