May has been a bad month for convicted murderer Danny Mason. First, he was found guilty of kidnapping a few days ago - and, today, the highest court in the land, the Caribbean Court of Justice slammed the door shut on Mason's final bid to overturn his conviction for the murder of Pastor Llewellyn Lucas.
Mason and four others were found guilty in 2020 after Pastor Lucas's severed head was discovered in a bucket in the back of Mason's vehicle.
Mason had tried to take his case to the CCJ, but his attorney at the time missed the deadline to file his application for special leave. That attorney was hospitalized when the 21 day deadline expired, and Mason didn't retain new counsel, Peter Taylor until months later.
Despite accepting the delay as justifiable, the CCJ found that the grounds Mason raised had no realistic chance of success, and said there was no risk of a serious miscarriage of justice. Here's how justice Rajnauth-Lee put it.
Judge, Caribbean Court of Justice
"Accordingly, the Court found that the proposed grounds had no realistic chance of success and that there was no risk of a serious miscarriage of justice and concluded that no genuinely disputable point of law of general public importance had been raised. The Court dismissed the applications."
With that, Mason and his co-accused have exhausted all appeals and remain serving life sentences for murder. Director of Public Prosecutions Cheryl-Lynn Vidal secured the conviction and successfully defended it at every level of appeal.
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