A Brampton man was acquitted of murder in April 2017 for the shooting death of 23-year-old Jordan Buchner outside a Brampton lounge and nightclub.
Jermaine Smith was found not guilty of second-degree murder by a jury Tuesday night after less than two hours of deliberation in Brampton Superior Court.
Buchner was shot and killed during a fight outside Masta’s Lounge nightclub on Orenda Road in the early hours of April 15, 2017.
Smith was arrested and charged with murder more than a year later, on June 19, 2018. He was 29 years old at the time.
At trial, Smith’s defense attorneys, Daniel Brown and Lindsay Board, argued that the Crown’s two main witnesses, co-defendant Adrian Roberts of Brampton, and a woman who claimed to be in the courtroom that night, were unreliable or unreliable. trustworthy. The defense noted that Roberts, 32 at the time of his arrest, had 17 prior convictions, arguing that he was willing to lie to police to protect himself from prosecution.
Both Roberts and Smith, who were friends, were among a group of men at the bar that night, the court heard. Prosecutors argued that Roberts had been in a confrontation with another man who was with Buchner outside the room, when Smith took a gun from Roberts and fired multiple rounds, including the fatal shot.
At trial, Roberts testified that he believes Smith fired the gun, although he said he was not looking when the shots were fired.
Roberts was initially charged with complicity in the crimes of murder and firearms. At trial, the jury heard that the Crown later dropped the accessory charge and that Roberts had served a 12-month sentence for possession of firearms.
“(Roberts) lied about where he was that night and who he was with,” Brown said during his closing statement Monday.
Brown said Roberts’s statements were riddled with lies, including about having a gun and leaving the scene with a gun.
“He lied about who he thought fired that gun,” Brown said, adding that Roberts pointed a finger at Smith because police told him that “if he didn’t tell them who (who fired) he would go to jail for the rest of the time. his life, so he said it was Jermaine. “
“What he did was reach an agreement to prevent him from getting in trouble and having the charges dropped,” Brown told the jury.
The defense attorney also argued that the witness testified against Smith in hopes of obtaining a $ 25,000 reward that offered in March 2018, more than a year after the shooting. She testified that Roberts had a gun during the confrontation, but was not the one who fired.
In his closing statement, Crown attorney Colin Henderson admitted that Roberts admitted to having a gun and told a number of lies to police, but said that “none of them mean that it cannot be found that he was telling the truth about the central theme of who fired the fatal shot. “
Reference-www.thestar.com