He was jailed for life and was told he must serve a minimum of 12 years under the law of “joint enterprise” because he did not intervene as his friends killed the 47-year-old salesman.
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The armed gang lured and then ambushed police during one of the most serious incidents of the summer, with at least a dozen shots fired from four or more handguns, some narrowly missing officers.
Jogee has previously failed in one appeal against his conviction.
By restoring the level of mental culpability to the same as principle offenders, however, the Supreme Court has tipped the scales back in favour of justice, preventing the prosecution from convicting individuals who are neither present when a crime occurs nor have the requisite intent.
His aunt Deborah Taylor is leading a campaign to prove his innocence.
The mother of a young Belfast victim of a notorious murder has said she does not expect it to affect her case, however (see below). Some murder convictions may need to be reclassified as manslaughter; some people who should never have been found guilty at all may have their convictions quashed.
Ishfaq Ahmed, 24, was shot in the back as he attempted to turn a group of six men away from the Premonition nightclub in November 2003. But speaking in general terms, she said: “The appeal courts aren’t going to take these cases lightly”.
Professor Jeremy Horder of the London School of Economics, who also contributed to the our research, said today: “There will probably be quite a number of post 2003 cases where there may very well be substantial injustice if the conviction of an accomplice convicted under the old rules is not reduced to manslaughter”.
In the Leicester case, Ameen Jogee was convicted of murder and sentenced to 18 years in jail after his friend Mohammed Hirsi stabbed a man to death in a house while Jogee was outside in 2011.
Delivering the judgement, Lord Neuberger said it was wrong to treat “foresight” as a sufficient test to convict someone of murder.
Jurors should view “foresight” only as evidence to be taken into account, not as proof.
The ruling could lead to hundreds of appeals by people who were convicted of serious crimes under Joint Enterprise. “However the Court of Appeal are likely to receive a series of appeals based on today’s decision”. There are other kinds of joint enterprise cases which this will not affect. The Lawrence case, for example.
She said the ruling related to a specific facet of the law on joint enterprise.
The Supreme Court ruling left victims’ families “devastated” and sparked fears unsafe criminals could be released on appeal and demand millions in compensation.
The law allowed people to be convicted of murder even if they did not inflict the fatal blow. The Council said the report “pulled together ground-breaking research to make a compelling case for a review of the law”.
Jogee’s solicitor, Sandeep Kaushal, said he also thought that around 600 cases could be affected. During the stabbing, Jogee remained outside the house; however, he was known to be egging Hirsi on to do something about Fyfe.
Mr Johnson, said: “I am really disappointed, it is a law that has been around for years and worked well”.
“But we now have confirmation that since 1974, this law has been used wrongly”.
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She added: “I have great sympathy for Mr Fyfe’s family”. It is presumed that the 2 person acted as an accessory to the commission of the offence and he had a foreseen possibility that such an offence would have been committed by the 1 person, disregarding his prior intention in such an act of crime.
