Defense Attorney Says He Will Appeal Decision

Following the verdict, defense attorney Oscar Selgado, who represented Kareem Martinez in the trial, maintained that there is no evidence and no scientific proof that his client fired the shot that killed Laddie Gillett. Selgado told the media that he intends to appeal the decision of the court.  But according to attorney-at-law Dickie Bradley, the rulings handed down by Justice Antoinette Moore are seldom reversed. Here’s reaction from both sides.

Oscar Selgado

Oscar Selgado, Attorney for Kareem Martinez

“Of course this will definitely go to the Appeals Court and let the Court of Appeal give it what value they think and I will raise the same argument that Claude Augustine had a firearm. He had two firearms out there, none of the firearms were sent to the ballistics examiner for analysis and Michael Miranda’s firearm was not sent for analysis. How can the court be satisfied without a reasonable doubt that they had not fired their firearms simply because an expended shell from their firearm was not recovered. They could have recovered it themselves; it was all at night. And the only way you could remove that doubt is by going to the ballistics examiner, to the national forensic science laboratory and say these weapons were not fired.”

Dickie Bradley

Dickie Bradley, Attorney-at-law

“I listened carefully and I want to say two things. One is that Justice Antoinette Moore is seldom disagreed with at the Court of Appeal and the other one is that that judgement today which went up until midday according to the court clock that was so impeccable and covered every angle. And you all heard the testimony in the court. The testimony is just too strong and it is unlikely on appeal that a Court of Appeal could say that the justice had erred in those matters. Now you can also appeal against sentence if the sentence is too severe or does not fit the crime. But in terms of the officer saying I discharged my gun, in terms of there has been absolutely no evidence that anybody else discharged a gun. Everybody else could have had a weapon with them that night there, but the fact is the officer said I discharged my gun. His gun was signed in and signed out. His gun has a serial number and that weapon was tested with the only shell that was found at the scene of the shooting just a few hours after it occurred. The shell match no other gun nor can it match any other gun because that’s not how bullets slugs and shells operate.”

While handing down her ruling, Justice Moore said that Thomas Palacio’s testimony, which is sworn evidence in court, can be extracted by any attorney-at-law and sued on behalf of him. Palacio was verbally and physically abused and had a gun pointed at his head and falsely imprisoned.