NASSAU- A man who won a retrial in a rare second chance appeal will be home for Christmas after being granted bail.
Justice Gregory Hilton on December 16 set bail at $9,500 for Daniel Coakley.
He is charged with kidnapping, attempted armed robbery and conspiracy to commit armed robbery.
The charges are connected to the 2013 murders of Senior Immigration Officer Shane Gardiner, 49, and his 28-year-old girlfriend Tishka Braynen in Fresh Creek, Andros.
Prosecutors allege that a robbery plot between Coakley, Zintworn Duncombe, James Johnson and Cordero Saunders resulted in their kidnapping and murders.
Hunters found the couple’s body’s in makeshift graves at Newbold Farms on December 21, 2013, nearly a month after they went missing on November 24.
Following his conviction in 2016, Coakley appealed. However, the Court of Appeal upheld his conviction and sentences in a 2018 decision.
In 2020, Coakley’s co-convicts were granted retrials after the appellate court found that a judge’s failure to investigate a fight between jurors affected the safety of their convictions.
Coakley’s attorney, Terrel Butler, did not raise that ground when she represented Coakley at his first appeal.
Arguing for a second chance appeal, Christina Galanos said the judge’s error affected the entire trial.
The Court ruled, “The present application involves exceptional circumstances as the material irregularity which the court found in the Saunders, Duncombe and Johnson appeals affected the entire trial and therefore the safety of all the verdicts.
“The interests of justice require that the applicant should undergo a retrial as well as his co-accused.”
The retrial is scheduled for 2023 before Justice Cheryl Grant-Thompson.
Coakley’s co-accused are also on ball.
