By PAVEL BAILEY

Tribune Staff Reporter

pbailey@tribunemedia.net

A MAN convicted of the 2018 murder of Rico Archer had his life sentence overturned by the Court of Appeal yesterday, though his conviction still stands.

Franklyn “Chilly” Edgecombe, 55, successfully challenged his sentence before Justices of Appeal Stella Crane-Scott, Bernard Turner, and Gregory Hilton. The court ordered that he be resentenced before a different Supreme Court judge.

Edgecombe was found guilty of fatally shooting Archer as he tried to flee while returning home from a convenience store in Mason’s Addition on December 11, 2018. He was sentenced to life in prison by Justice Franklyn Williams in January, after being unanimously convicted in September 2023.

During appeal submissions, Edgecombe’s attorney, Marianne Cadet, argued that the trial judge erred in admitting a written statement from Valentino Williams, the only alleged eyewitness to the crime, who died before the trial began.

Ms Cadet also contended that she should have been allowed to call Richard Pumerantz and Fredrick Delancy as expert witnesses in firearm and crime scene reconstruction to challenge Williams’s statement.

She further claimed that the crime scene photographs presented in court failed to properly depict the area and that the jury should have been taken to view the scene in person.

In response, prosecutor Tamika Roberts defended the trial court’s decisions. She maintained that Williams’s statement was lawfully admitted and argued that a site visit without the eyewitness present would have led to speculation.

Ms Roberts also asserted that both Pumerantz and Delancy had discredited themselves as expert witnesses, justifying the court’s decision to exclude their testimony.