In November 2012, 38 year-old Lavern Longsworth, better known as "Antichrist", became the first accused person to be convicted of murder after the prosecution used interviews she gave to the media against her. Well, she's trying to appeal that conviction. Her case came up today before Appeal Justices Dennis Morrison, Minnet Hafiz-Bertram, Samuel Awich. Her attorney, Godfrey Smith, tried to get her sentence reduced from murder to manslaughter by making an application to the court to accept new evidence. What Smith wanted the court to accept was a report done on Longsworth by British Forensic Psychiatrist, Dr. Gillian Mezey. In that report, the doctor found she wasn't in the right state of mind when she lit her common-law husband, David White, on fire. The Doctor believes that Longsworth was suffering from battered woman's syndrome.
That's because White, who has had a few brushes with the law for violent criminal offences, was allegedly a drug addict who habitually inflicted physical abuse on Longsworth for years before she took action against him.
The Appeal Court accepted this report into evidence today, and outside of court we asked Smith to explain the significance to us:
Godfrey Smith, Attorney for Lavern Longsworth
"This morning, basically, we sought to adduce fresh evidence which was not available at the Supreme Court when Lavern Longsworth was first tried. And that fresh evidence was essentially the professional evidence of psychiatrists and a psychologist to the effect, putting it simply, to the effect that at the time the offence was committed, Lavern Longsworth was suffering from Battered Woman Syndrome, which can be defined as an abnormality of the mind. And which, where it is present would result in what is called diminished responsibility so that she would not be fully responsible for her actions and that would result in the reduction of her sentence automatically from murder to manslaughter. So basically all that was achieved this morning was that the court accepted this new fresh evidence, the professional psychiatric reports that Lavern was suffering from Battered Woman Syndrome. The importance of that, beyond what I've said about the reduction of sentence, is that it is the first time I believe in Belize, maybe even in the Caribbean where Battered Women Syndrome will now form a part of the criminal proceedings in relation to its impact on available defenses."
Daniel Ortiz
"Did your client ever give you instructions that she would want to press for a full acquittal?"
Godfrey Smith
"Obviously, clients are always hoping for a full acquittal, but we have advised her that taking everything into consideration the dangers od going back to retrial etc. it is best to handle it this way."
Longsworth's case will go back before the Court of Appeal on June 20. At that time, Director of Public Prosecutions Cheryl-Lynn Vidal and Godfrey Smith will present what is believed to be a reduced prison sentence after they've reviewed similar cases already tried. If the Court of Appeal reduces the conviction from murder to manslaughter, it is expected that this reduced prison sentence will be adopted for her.
