Wrongly Convicted Database Record

 

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Duverna Louis Rigby

 

Charge:

Environmental Violation

Sentence:

"Three months in jail or $4,000 fine"

Years Imprisoned:

Year Crime:

2010

Year Convicted:

2011

Year Cleared:

2012

U.S. State or Country of Crime:

Turks and Caicos Islands

County or Region of Crime:

City of Crime:

Five Cays

Result:

Judicially Exonerated

Summary of Case:

"St. Martin Valmera and Duverna Louis Rigby were codefendants wrongly convicted in 2011 of illegally removing a pick-up load of sand near the North West Point Resort on the ocean in Five Cays, Turks and Caicos, on February 10, 2010 without a sand mining license. The two men obtained the permission of the property owner to take the sand. Valmera was ordered to either pay a $20,000 fine or serve 60 days in jail and Rigby was ovdered to either pay a $2,000 fine or serve three months in prison. The men appealed and on March 5, 2012 the Turks and Caicos Islands Supreme Court overturned their convictions because the Coastal Protection Ordinance did not clearly define “land bordering on the sea.” The Court's ruling stated: “Giving the words of the ordinance their ordinary meaning, and bearing in mind the apparent mischief of preventing illegal sand mining to protect and preserve beaches and guard against shoreline erosion, I construe the words ‘land bordering on the sea’ as referring to that margin of land adjacent to the sea, the seashore, the beach, extending from the low water mark to the vegetation line, ... If the legislature had intended the word ‘coast’ to have a wider definition to include land at some distance from the beach, it could easily have used such words as ‘including all coastal land above and within x yards of the mean high water mark’ or words to that effect. Absent those words, the provision should bear the narrower construction I have put on it, not least because it is a penal statute which creates an offence of strict liability.”"

Conviction Caused By:

Innocence Proved By:

"Convictions of Valmera and Rigby were overturned on March 5, 2012 by the Turks and Caicos Islands Supreme Court."

Defendant Aided By:

Compensation Awarded:

Was Perpetrator Identified?

Age When Imprisoned:

Age When Released:

Sex:

Male

Skin/Ethnicity:

Information Source 1:

"R v. Louis Rigby & St Martin Valmera, No. CL-APM 19-11, Supreme Court of the Turks and Caicos Islands, March 5, 2012"

Information Location 1:

http://www.fptci.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3461:sand-mining-decision-march-5-2012&catid=37:statements&Itemid=82

Information Source 2:

"Sand mining convictions overturned, By FP Staff, FPTCI.com (Turks and Caicos), April 12, 2012"

Information Location 2:

http://www.fptci.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3470:sand-mining-convictions-overturned&catid=18:local&Itemid=26

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Innocents Database Created and Maintained by Hans Sherrer innocents@forejustice.org

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