Pair convicted in 2016 death of teen at pizza shop to get new trial, 3rd man acquitted
Two men convicted of first-degree murder in the death of a teen at a Pizza Pizza shop in Toronto nearly eight years ago will get a new trial and a third man has been acquitted, Ontario’s Court of Appeal ruled on Friday.
Twins Lenneil Shaw and Shakiyl Shaw will be retried and Mohamed Ali-Nur has been acquitted after their lawyers appealed their convictions in the killing of Jarryl Hagley. The three men were sentenced to life in prison without the right to parole for 25 years following their trial in 2019.
Hagley, 17, was shot in the early morning hours of Oct. 16, 2016 at a pizza restaurant at on Weston Road near Lawrence Avenue West.
He was eating with friends when gunmen entered the restaurant. The men opened fire in Hagley’s direction and he was wounded, and taken to hospital, where he died of his injuries.
A fourth man who was with the group told police he didn’t know the shooting was going to happen. Winston Poyser became the Crown’s key witness, testifying against the Shaw twins and Ali-Nur.
In its ruling, the appeal court said the trial judge made three errors: There was a failure to reiterate to the jury that a reasonable doubt may arise from the absence of evidence, a failure to provide an instruction to the jury about inappropriate comments in the Crown’s closing address and a refusal to allow the jury to use Poyser’s statement to his lawyer that he had seen his accomplices in possession of weapons in the past.
“I am of the view that cumulatively, the three errors I have identified denied the appellants a fair trial,” the ruling said.
“The Crown’s case was far from overwhelming… There were significant gaps in the evidence. This court cannot have any confidence that the verdicts would have been the same absent the errors identified.”
As for the conviction of Ali-Nur, the appeal court said it was not reasonable.
“There was no physical or forensic evidence connecting Mr. Ali-Nur to any of the scenes relevant to the shooting,” the ruling said.
The exact motive for the murder was never explained during the trial, but a settling of scores might have been behind the shooting, according to Crown prosecutors.
The appeal court said all three guilty verdicts were based in part on Poyser’s credibility as a prosecution witness, since he was present with the driver and two shooters that night. It was also his car that was used to get to the restaurant.
During the trial, jurors heard Poyser went to the restaurant with the others but stood outside the door.
After the killing, he fled the scene with the shooters. His car was recognizable on the surveillance video and Poyser was the only one whose face was visible enough to be identified, using the surveillance camera video from the business.
Poyser knew the Shaw twins well, having dated their sister. But he did not know Ali-Nur, who he had met the day of the shooting. He had been told his name was Cron Dog.
Evidence had ‘frailties’: ruling
In its ruling, the appeal court said the identification evidence provided by Poyser as it related to Ali-Nur had “significant frailties.”
Poyser, for example, was unable to provide a description of Cron Dog in much detail, and investigators never asked him at the police station to select Cron Dog from a photo lineup or a suspect lineup.
The police had, in fact, only shown him a single photo of Ali-Nur, asking him if it was really Cron Dog, but without showing him the photos of other suspects at the same time.
On the day of the conviction, lawyers for the convicted men said outside the courtroom they were shocked by the verdict and would appeal.
All had argued that Poyser could not be believed. He had originally been charged with first-degree murder along with the Shaw brothers and Ali Nur, but later pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact.
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