The testimony of a teenager who told police Devon Joy was “definitely” responsible for stabbing a man at a house party last year wasn’t reliable enough to convict him, a St. John’s judge has ruled.
As a result, Joy, 20, was acquitted last week of charges of aggravated assault and assault with a weapon laid in connection with the incident, which sent a man to hospital with serious stab wound to his neck and chest.
Police had been called to the home around 5a.m. and were greeted by tenants of the upstairs apartment, who said there had been some kind of a fight in the downstairs residence. A girl had been thrown out of the apartment partially nude and had run up to their place screaming, they said. In the downstairs apartment, police found a mess of beer bottles and garbage, a blood smear on the wall, and two men, including victim Brad Follett, who was seriously injured but did not want to give police a statement.
At trial, he said a number of people had assaulted him, but he didn’t know who they were.
The only female in the apartment at the time, a 17-year-old girl, also testified, saying she couldn’t remember what happened. Prosecutor Jeff Summers successfully applied to play for the court a recording of her interview with police in the hours after the stabbing. In it, the girl told investigators she had some friends had been drinking at the apartment along with Joy, Follett and two others. By about 2 a.m. there were only five of them left. The girl said she had been sitting on the couch and had started falling asleep when the fight broke out.
“I remember I opened my eyes and I seen someone get stabbed,” the teenager told police. “It was Devon that stabbed Brad.”
The girl told police Follett had been on the ground and Joy was standing over him, stabbing him with a black handled-knife while another man kicked him.
In acquitting Joy, Judge Lori Marshall reviewed portions of the girl’s interview in which she contradicted herself.
“Undoubtedly this was a very traumatic event to witness,” Marshall said, “But not only did she give an evolving version of it, there were inconsistencies in it.”
Marshall noted the girl had told police she was intoxicated at the time, had said she was in a dream-like state, and acknowledged she had discussed the incident with a friend before giving her statement — all facts that undermined her ability to identify Joy as the stabber, Marshall ruled.
“It would be unsafe to conclude that her evidence is reliable enough to convict Devon Joy,” the judge said, clearing him of the charges.
Before Joy could leave the courtroom, however, he was approached by a sheriff’s officer, who informed him he was being taken into custody on a warrant. Joy is alleged to have breached conditions handed to him by the court when he was originally charged. Although he’s now been cleared of those charges, the conditions were active at the time he is accused of disobeying them. He was released to appear in court again on the breaches at a later date.
A second man was also charged in connection with Follett’s injuries: Dylan Walsh, 21, admitted he had kicked Follett and pleaded guilty to assault, earning a 30-day jail sentence last spring.
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