QLD: Retrial for man convicted of US sailor s murder

AAP General News (Australia)
12-23-1999
QLD: Retrial for man convicted of US sailor s murder

By Suzanne Klotz

BRISBANE, Dec 23 AAP - A retrial has been ordered in the case of a teenager convicted
of murder after he knifed a group of visiting American sailors in a nightclub.

Jorai Severo Pangilinan (Jorai Severo Pangilinan), 21, of Trinder Park on Brisbane's
southern outskirts, was convicted earlier this year of murdering electronics technician
Kevin Sutton Anderson, 34, on February 1 last year.

He was also convicted of grievous bodily harm with intent against Hilton Owens, and
the wounding of Gary Pryer and Darrin Van Johnson.

All four men were sailors with the 7th Fleet flagship the USS Blue Ridge which was
visiting Brisbane.

They were in a larger group of about 15 sailors partying at the Gig nightclub in Brisbane's
CBD when a fight broke out between them and Pangilinan.

The defence had appealed the convictions on grounds including that the jury should
have been allowed to consider self-defence, that necessary evidence had been excluded,
and that the jury ought to have been directed on issues of provocation and mistake.

In a joint written decision, Court of Appeal President Margaret McMurdo and Justices
Geoff Davies and James Thomas allowed the appeal, set aside the convictions and ordered
a retrial on all counts.

They found there was sufficient evidence to raise the reasonable possibility of a loss
of self-control by Pangilinan due to a mixture of fear and anger based on threats, physical
gestures and conduct by a group of people of whom Anderson might reasonably be thought
to have been a member.

"The learned trial judge erred in refusing to allow a jury to consider the issue of
self-defence," they wrote.

"His honour further erred in failing to advise the jury to consider the question of
provocation as a possible basis for reducing murder to manslaughter.

"There must be a retrial."

AAP smk/sd/wjf

KEYWORD: PANGILINAN HOLD

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