The History Behind the Calaney Flowers Case

Calaney Flowers

For the first time in recent memory, a person who is accused of murder will be brought before the Supreme Court to be tried a second time, after having gone before all levels of the court system during her previous trial. Calaney Flowers, accused of the murder of her ex-boyfriend, Lyndon Morrison in August 2012, had been declared not guilty, and then an appeal filed, challenging that decision. The case went all the way before the Caribbean Court of Justice and now, there is a new order for a retrial. Marion Ali reports.

Marion Ali, Reporting

The Appeals Court has set aside the not guilty verdict of Calaney Flowers and ordered a retrial for murder – an appeal that was sought by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Retrials are ordered often enough, but the previous case bore a degree of novelty in that it has gone before all levels of the court system, including the Caribbean Court of Justice. The incident in August of 2012 that drew the charge of murder against Flowers happened near a speed bump in front of the Central Assembly of God Church on Freetown Road.

Lyndon Morrison

A car driven by Flowers, crashed so violently into the back of her ex-boyfriend’s motorcycle, that it flung him and his passenger Sochyl Sosa to the pavement.While Sosa survived, the driver, Lyndon Morrison died. Flowers, an Atlantic Bank teller at the time, was charged with Morrison’s murder. When the not-guilty verdict was appealed, the Court of Appeal found that, essentially, the trial judge had erred in law by failing to consider whether Flowers had intent sufficient to support the alternative that is manslaughter – a consideration that Section one, two, six – one of the Indictable Procedure Act requires in this scenario.

Presiding Judge in the first trial, Justice Troadio Gonzalez found at the end of the case in March of 2017 that there was no evidence to confirm that Morrison’s death was the result of a murder. After that ruling, Flowers went to the United States, and in 2019, the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal by the Office of the D.P.P. The case was taken before the C.C.J., which referred the matter back to the Court of Appeal. There, the court concluded that Justice Gonzalez had erred in his judgment. The issue now is whether or not Calaney Flowers will be located to face a new trial. When we checked today, she was not in remand at the Belize Central Prison. In fact, word is that she is out of the country.

Marion Ali for News Five.