Appeals Court reduces sentence, increases fine for traffic death

Both the prosecution and the defense in a manslaughter case met with some degree of success today in the Court of Appeal. At the same time that Cardinal Smith, a police officer interdicted from duty and his attorney Oswald Twist were appealing his manslaughter by negligence conviction, the D.P.P. was arguing that it was too lenient. Justices Elliot Mottley, Boyd Carey, and Manuel Sosa ruled that after examining Smith=s case, he should have been convicted of a lesser charge, and agreed to reduce his manslaughter by negligence to causing death by careless conduct. But while they lowered his offence, the judges raised his fine from the six thousand dollars imposed by Justice Michelle Arana on December twenty-second to ten thousand dollars. They also ordered that ten thousand dollars compensation be paid to the family of accident victim Jamil Torres Shephard. No prison time was given. The original charges stem from an incident in June of 2005 in which Smith accidentally knocked down and killed Shephard between miles fifty-four and fifty-five on the Hummingbird Highway. Smith was driving a government vehicle at the time.