A Somerset couple convicted last year of having more than $200,000 worth of cocaine in their home were released yesterday on $25,000 bail to appear for a retrial that has yet to be scheduled.

And the highest court in the land set a new precedent yesterday about the use of confessions in criminal cases ? questionable confessions are inadmissible unless the Department of Public Prosecutions can prove they are given voluntarily.

Jennifer Medeiros, 23, and Oshane Eugene Darrell, 27, both of Seawall Drive, were sentenced to seven years and ten years respectively by Puisne Judge Norma Wade Miller in Supreme Court in July 2005.

However, Appeals Court President Justice Edward Zacca yesterday allowed their appeal and quashed the conviction.

?The sentence will be set aside, however, a new trial is ordered,? Mr. Justice Zacca said.

Defence lawyer Elizabeth Christopher ? holding for English barrister John Perry QC ? made an application for bail under the same terms as had been granted in Supreme Court, including a $25,000 surety and travel restrictions.

Crown counsel Paula Tyndale did not object to bail.

?Then bail is granted to each of the appellants on the same terms as before,? the Court of Appeal President said.

A written judgment handed down by the Court of Appeal on Thursday said Mrs. Justice Miller incorrectly directed the jury three times in the 2005 trial.

However, she could not be to blame for one of these misdirections, the Appeals Court said, because the relevant case law had not been decided until April 21, 2005 ? the same day the Medeiros and Darrell trial started here.

It said the trial judge should not have told the jury they could rely on Darrell?s ?confession? ? if they believed it was true.

?You may rely on it even if it was or may have been made as a result of trickery or other improper circumstances,? it quoted the trial judge to say.

The Court of Appeal said a proper direction would have been ?if they consider that the confession was, or may have been, obtained by oppression or in consequence of anything said or done which is likely to render it unreliable, they should disregard it.?

The Appeal judgment also said the trial judge should not have told the jury that it was up to the defendants to prove that they did not know 678 grams of cocaine was in their bathroom and kitchen.

The Appeal Judges said Medeiros and Darrell did not have to prove anything and it was up to prosecutors to prove they knew the drugs were there.

?If sufficient evidence is adduced on behalf of the defendant to raise the issue of knowledge, it will be for the prosecution to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the defence is not made out by the evidence,? it said. ?We therefore hold that the learned trial judge was in error in directing the jury that there is a burden of proof on the appellants and that this burden could be discharged on a balance of probabilities.?

A third misdirection concerned $19,320 found by Police at the Somerset on November 23, 2002, it said.

Darrell said the money came from the selling of a jet-ski, the Crown disagreed.

?It is necessary, in the circumstances, for the judge to indicate that any explanation for the money which has been put forward by way of innocent explanation would have to be rejected by the jury before they could regard the finding of the money as relevant in the offence,? it said. ?The absence of such directions amount to a mis-direction or non-direction. These misdirection?s and non-directions of the Learned Trial Judge were such as to lead this Court to the conclusion that the convictions of both appellants must be quashed.?

Darrell was represented by Jamaican barrister Frank Phipps QC.