NASSAU – After spending eight years in custody, Daniel Coakley has another shot at freedom after the appellate court ordered a retrial “in the interests of justice.”
The Court took the rare step in reopening Coakley’s appeal, three years after affirming his convictions for kidnapping, conspiracy to commit armed robbery and attempted armed robbery.
The charges concern the 2013 murders of Senior Immigration Officer Shane Gardiner and his girlfriend Tishka Braynen in Fresh Creek, Andros.
Prosecutors alleged that a plot by Coakley, Zintworn Duncombe, James Johnson, and Cordero Saunders led to their murders.
Hunters found the pair’s decomposed bodies in makeshift graves at Newbold Farms on December 21, 2013, almost a month after their disappearance on November 24.
Coakley was the first of the four men to appeal, but his convictions were affirmed.
In 2020, his co-accused were granted new trials based on “the failure of the trial judge to make a proper inquiry of the jury after the altercation between the forewoman and the alternate juror”.
Coakley did not raise this ground at his first appeal.
Arguing for a second chance appeal, defense lawyer Christina Galanos said the “material irregularity” 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 his co-accused.”
