But not guilty of his original conviction for murder
The killer whose name will forever be associated with one of the most important Supreme Court decisions ever has been found not guilty of murder and guilty of manslaughter instead.
Ameen Jogee was convicted of the murder of a police officer, Paul Fyfe, under the doctrine of joint enterprise, and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 20 years. The doctrine states all participants in a joint criminal enterprise will be criminally liable for the harm that results from that enterprise, even if the defendant did not ‘pull the trigger’.
Represented by legal twitterati heavyweights Adam Wagner and Felicity Gerry QC, Jogee challenged the doctrine all the way up to the Supreme Court, arguing that the mens rea as it then stood was unjust.
And the highest court in the land agreed with him. The justices said the law on this controversial doctrine had been “wrongly interpreted” and overruled more than 30 years of case law. This sparked a pretty major law degree syllabus shake-up, and also some pretty naff tabloid reporting.
The decision left the fate of many offenders convicted under the doctrine hanging in the balance, including Jogee himself. The Supreme Court did not overrule his conviction and instead sent the case back to the court of first instance, where it was retried.
After more than 13 hours of deliberations, the jury cleared the defendant of murder at Nottingham Crown Court last Friday. This afternoon the jury returned their final verdict, unanimously finding 27-year-old Jogee guilty of manslaughter.
He will be sentenced next Monday.