Simmons & Anor v. R. Rev 1 (Bahamas)

Simmons & Anor v. R. Rev 1 (Bahamas) [2006] UKPC 19 (3 April 2006)

Privy Council Appeal No 33 of 2005

(1) Ronald George Simmons

(2) Robert G Greene Appellants

v.

The Queen Respondent

FROM

THE COURT OF APPEAL OF

THE BAHAMAS

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JUDGMENT OF THE LORDS OF THE JUDICIAL

COMMITTEE OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL

Delivered the 3rd April 2006

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Present at the hearing:-

Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead

Lord Woolf

Lord Hope of Craighead

Baroness Hale of Richmond

Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood

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[Delivered by Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood]

On 5 April 2002, after a trial lasting just under four weeks before Allen J and a jury, these two appellants were each convicted of the murder, on 16 October 1997, of Perry McKellan Munroe (a police officer) and of housebreaking, contrary to sections 312 and 383 respectively of the Penal Code (Cap. 77), and were sentenced to death. On 13 April 2004 the Court of Appeal of The Bahamas (Sawyer, P, Ganpatsingh and Osadebay JJA) dismissed their appeals against conviction; they had not appealed against sentence. They now appeal to the Board by special leave (granted to Simmons on 17 November 2004 and to Greene on 12 December 2005) not only against their convictions but also against the mandatory death sentence to which each was subject.

Conviction

The principal ground of each appellant's appeal against conviction concerns the judge's decision following a lengthy (six-day) voir dire to admit his confession statement into evidence against him. That being so, it is convenient to begin by summarising the nature and effect of the Crown's evidence against the appellants, their confession statements aside. What follows, therefore, is a summary of the case established against the appellants independently of their admissions.

The appellants are cousins, at the time of Munroe's killing in their early twenties (Simmons the elder of the two), living together in a house in Nassau. On the morning of 16 October 1997 they flew together from Nassau to Mangrove Cay, Andros (a small island with a population of roughly a thousand inhabitants, a twenty-minute flight from Nassau) where their uncle (Mr Kelly Greene) owned a restaurant – the Fisherman's Club at Little Harbour. The uncle was away at the time in Nassau. On arrival at Mangrove Cay both appellants were recognised at the airport by several people who knew them (including Constable Rolle, one of only two police officers on the island, the other being Constable Munroe), and Greene was seen to collect a large black bag measuring three or four feet (described by another witness as a medium-large black or blue bag measuring about two feet) from the airport baggage cart. Both men then walked off together in the direction of…

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