The Court of Appeal will today hear arguments on the appropriate sentence for a man whose murder conviction was reduced to manslaughter on appeal.
After substituting the murder conviction with one of manslaughter, the Court of Appeal gave Dominique Moss a 25-year sentence for killing a woman in Freeport, Grand Bahama.
The Privy Council sent the case back to the Court of Appeal last November after ruling that Moss had the right to be heard on an appropriate penalty.
At the Privy Council, Moss' attorney argued that the sentence of 25 years is, on the facts of this case, manifestly excessive both generally and in particular because the sentence imposed by the trial judge on his co-accused was one of six years.
The court ruled, "The defendant was, and is, entitled to address the proper factual basis for sentence now that the conviction for murder has been quashed.
"He is entitled to address the relative roles of the two accused. He is entitled to address the proper tariff for manslaughter in The Bahamas, the proper place within that tariff for the present."
The high court was referring to the sentencing range for manslaughter, and whether the crime deserves the most severe penalty.
In the early hours of the morning, the defendant and his co-accused took the female victim from a bar and onto a golf course with the object of having sexual intercourse with her, according to the evidence.
There was evidence that she was reluctant to go. Her body was found the next morning in standing water on the course.
Her throat had been cut to the extent that her head was almost severed from her body. There were signs of sexual assault. In police interviews Moss and Lotmore each asserted that the other had killed her.

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