The facts as submitted by the author Complaint 2.1 The author was arrested on 3 October 1981 on suspicion of having murdered, on the same day, Ernest Millwood. In January 1983, he was put on trial before the Manchester Circuit Court. As the jury failed to arrive at a unanimous verdict - 11 jurors were in favour of acquittal, only one supported a “guilty” verdict - the presiding judge ordered a retrial. In May 1983, at the conclusion of the retrial before the same court, the author was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The Court of Appeal of Jamaica dismissed his appeal on 22 November 1985 and issued a written judgment in the case on 16 January 1986. A petition for special leave to appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was dismissed on 25 January 1988. On 19 February 1991, the Governor-General of Jamaica commuted the author’s death sentence to life imprisonment. 3.1 The author claims to be innocent and maintains that he was denied a fair trial by an independent and impartial tribunal, in violation of article 14, paragraph 1, of the Covenant. Firstly, he alleges that the members of the jury at the retrial were biased against him. He indicates that most of them were chosen from areas close to the community where the crime had occurred and surmises that, for that reason, they had already formed their opinion in the case, in particular on hearsay, before the start of the trial. Moreover, the jurors were allegedly sympathetic to the deceased and his relatives and, as a result, did not base their verdict on the facts of the case. In this connection, the author claims that, in spite of numerous requests for a change of venue on the ground that the jurors had displayed bias against the author the Court refused to change the venue. 2.2 The prosecution’s case was that for some time there had been friction between the author and the wife of the deceased, who was employed as a cleaner at Kendal Police Station in the Manchester District to which the author was attached as a young police constable. On the day of the crime, he was on duty and therefore armed with his service revolver. He went up to Mr. Millwood who was cutting grass with a machete, nearby the police station. An argument developed between them, following which the author set out to arrest Mr. Millwood for using indecent language. The latter ran away and the author followed him trying to effect the arrest. In the course of the chase the author shot in the air, but Mr. Millwood did not stop. Subsequently the author caught up with Mr. Millwood, who allegedly chopped at him with the machete. The author, in what he claims was lawful selfdefence, fired a shot aimed at the left shoulder of the man, so as to disarm him. The shot, however, proved to be fatal. Immediately thereafter Corporal Afflick arrived on the scene. The author gave him his service revolver and Mr. Millwood’s machete, explaining that he had pursued Mr. Millwood and warned him to drop the machete and that he shot Mr. Millwood when he resisted. The author returned to the police station and was formally arrested several hours later, after a preliminary investigation had been conducted. 3.2 Furthermore, it is claimed that the judge abused his discretion in ruling inadmissible the author’s statement to Corporal Afflick immediately after the shooting. The author contends that the statement was admissible as part of the res gestae and that it confirmed that his trial defence was not a later concoction. 3.3 As to the issue of self-defence the author submits that the judge should have directed the jury that the prosecution had to prove that the violence used was unlawful and that if the accused honestly believed that the circumstances warranted the use of force, he should be acquitted of murder, since the intent to act unlawfully would be negated by his belief, however mistaken or unreasonable. This the trial judge did not do. 3.4 The author further claims that the trial judge misdirected the jury by withdrawing from it the issue of manslaughter. According to the author, although the case was based on selfdefence, the jury, if properly directed, could have arrived at a verdict of manslaughter on the basis of the evidence of some of the Crown’s witnesses. The judge, however, in his summation, instructed the jury as follows: “I tell you this as a matter of law that provocation does not apply in this case. I tell you this as a matter of law again that manslaughter does not arise in this case ... It is my responsibility to decide what 48