Judge grants bail to trio awaiting appeal of ganja trafficking convictions

Dellon St. Hill, Parsram Sancharra and Khalil Mustafa—the three men who earlier this year won their challenge to the mandatory minimum three-year sentence for ganja trafficking—have been granted bail pending the appeal of their convictions.

At the conclusion of their individual trials before the Magistrate’s Court, each was sentenced to three years behind bars—the term of imprisonment previously held by the magistracy to be the mandatory minimum sentence, and below which it could not go.

In a March 28th, 2018 ruling, however, Justice Jo-Ann Barlow found that the lower courts do have a discretion to go below the minimum sentence set by statute, given the particular circumstances of the case before it.