Nearly a decade after a Jamaican man opened fire on a police officer conducting a stakeout in Kingston’s Manning’s Hill neighborhood, the Court of Appeal has finalized his sentence, upholding his conviction on weapons and assault charges while trimming two months off his 20-year prison term to account for pre-sentencing custody time.
The defendant, Rohan Dixon, a St. Catherine resident, was first found guilty in the 2015 incident in 2021 by the Gun Court’s High Court division. For the charge of illegal firearm possession, he received a 15-year prison term, and an additional 20-year sentence for shooting with intent to harm. The court ruled the sentences would run concurrently, meaning Dixon would serve the full 20-year term. Dissatisfied with the ruling, Dixon launched an appeal challenging both his conviction and the original sentencing.
Dixon’s legal team argued the original trial had critical flaws. They claimed there was no physical evidence to prove a firearm was even present at the scene—neither the weapon itself nor spent bullet casings were ever recovered—and no accurate description of the weapon was provided by witnesses. The defense further pushed the claim that prosecution evidence could not support the conviction, as there was no definitive proof Dixon was the person who fired at the officer.
The prosecution’s account of the 2015 incident lays out the context for the case. In July 2015, a team of plainclothes police officers executing an operation targeted a specific residential property in Manning’s Hill. When officers arrived, they found the home empty but discovered clear signs that occupants had fled in a urgent hurry. The team set up a hidden surveillance perimeter around the property to wait for the occupants’ return.
One lead detective, who was a sergeant at the time of the operation, testified that while he was positioned at the rear of the home watching a downhill slope through a window, he spotted two armed men moving up the hill toward the back of the property. The officer moved to hide behind a wall on the home’s left side, where he saw one man approaching his position with a gun pointed directly toward him. When the man got within range, the officer shouted his police identification and ordered the man to stop. The detective confirmed the suspect fired at him, but the shot missed. The officer returned fire, and the suspect fled the yard into nearby dense brush. A subsequent search of the brush turned up multiple blood trails, indicating the suspect had been hit in the exchange.
A month after the shooting, acting on a tip, a detective corporal apprehended Dixon at a home in Gregory Park, St. Catherine. The officer, who had prior knowledge of Dixon, noticed Dixon had a fresh gunshot wound to his ankle. When cautioned, Dixon initially claimed he had been shot while trespassing on a squatted site near Mexico. Later, while detained at the Portmore lock-up, Dixon allegedly admitted to the corporal he had been at the Manning’s Hill scene, telling the officer he had followed another person uptown when police arrived, shots broke out, and he was shot in the foot. During another police interview, Dixon gave a contradictory statement, saying he had never carried a gun, had just run from the house when shots started, and was shot by police.
At his original trial, Dixon swore under oath he had no involvement in the shooting at the officer. He admitted he could not even confirm where he was on the day of the incident, and denied ever telling police he had been present at the scene. During the appeal process, the prosecution successfully petitioned to reopen its case to present new rebuttal evidence refuting Dixon’s claim that he was not at the crime scene.
After reviewing all arguments from both sides and issuing its ruling this month, the Appeal Court confirmed the original convictions were legally sound. Justices on the appeal panel wrote that a thorough review of the case found the lead detective had provided sufficient, detailed description of the firearm used in the attack. The court further noted that the detective’s testimony, which was accepted by the original trial judge, led to one unavoidable conclusion: that Dixon fired at the detective with the clear intent to cause severe bodily harm.
The court highlighted significant aggravating factors that justified the lengthy sentence, including the original trial judge’s note that Dixon’s social enquiry report painted a picture of a man widely feared in his local community. Justices also pointed out that Dixon had two prior convictions for illegal firearm and ammunition possession, both of which were committed after he was charged for the 2015 shooting. He had just finished serving those prior sentences when he was sentenced for the 2015 crimes, further weighing against a more lenient sentence.
A key argument from the defense was that the six-year delay between Dixon’s arrest and his trial violated his constitutional right to a timely, fair trial, and the trial judge had failed to account for this delay in sentencing. The Appeal Court ruled that Dixon could not prove his defense had suffered any prejudice from the overall delay, which was split between prosecution/administrative delays (accounting for 60% of the total wait) and defense-caused delays (the remaining 40%). The court found the three years and four months of delay attributable to the state was not excessive, given the well-documented operational constraints of Jamaica’s justice system, and did not violate Dixon’s constitutional rights.
While the court upheld the convictions, it did find the original trial judge had made a procedural error in carrying out the sentencing. After conducting a full resentencing review, the only adjustment the court made was a two-month reduction to account for pre-sentence custody Dixon served after completing his prior, unrelated sentences. The court rejected the defense’s request for a broader sentence reduction tied to the delay, finding no constitutional violation had occurred that would warrant such a cut.
After apologizing to both legal teams for the delay in issuing the appeal judgement, the court dismissed Dixon’s challenge to his illegal firearm possession conviction and 15-year sentence, affirming that penalty in full. The court allowed the appeal of the 20-year shooting with intent sentence, setting aside the original term and substituting it with a 19-year and 10-month term. As with the original ruling, the two sentences will run concurrently, backdated to the original April 15, 2021 sentencing date.