by Leo Gilling
LONDON, England – Thursday, the Privy Council quashed the Adidja Palmer (VK: Vybz Kartel) case. The London-based courtroom dominated that makes an attempt to bribe the trial jury within the unique homicide case of Clive “Lizard” Williams made the conviction unsafe.
The outcomes of the unique conviction we will put apart for now. The choice in 2020 of a three-member Courtroom of Appeals, based mostly on the unique case, is a extra urgent problem at the moment. The three Courtroom of Enchantment Judges, Frank Wiliams, Dennis Morrison, and Patrick Brooks, agreed with the decrease courts to uphold the conviction of Adidja Palmer. That courtroom selected the identical inconsistent proof and didn’t overturn the decrease courtroom’s blatant miscarriage of justice within the defendant’s conviction. A tainted jury in most judicial methods is trigger for an instantaneous mistrial. The Adidja Palmer case mustn’t have continued with a tainted jury.
VK has been in jail for roughly ten years now, and the Privy Council, which Jamaica is contemplating eradicating as the ultimate courtroom of justice, has determined to quash the case, sending it again to the identical Courtroom of Appeals that upheld the choice of the unique conviction. Is that this determination by the Privy Counsel a slap within the face of our justice system?
On the appellate stage in Jamaica, with the proof offered, the problem won’t decide VK’s guilt or innocence however slightly a technicality on whether or not he’s freed from imprisonment or retried. Immediately, this main setback for the native justice system within the Privy Council determination is that this might have been averted if a retrial had been known as in 2014 as a substitute of the ultimate courtroom of justice. A choice on VK’s guilt or innocence would have been determined then. One may now decipher that there was a rush to judgment. It isn’t unattainable now to resolve on guilt or innocence. The Courtroom of Appeals in Jamaica should make considered one of two choices: free VK or return the case to the decrease courtroom for retrial.
A retrial can be expensive, and there are different points with the trial in 2014 if a retrial turns into vital with the Privy Counsel’s determination. The prosecution should fastidiously assessment proof to find out whether or not they can win a brand new trial. Contaminated proof needs to be faraway from the checklist of proof to forestall one other appellate misstep. For instance, they need to take away the contaminated cellphone proof; whereas in custody, the police made calls from VK’s mobile phone. That’s a big downside. Additional, they didn’t shield the cellphone’s SD card; that is additionally tainted proof. Moreover, Lamar “Wee” Chow’s (prosecution’s prime witness) inconsistent account of seeing the lifeless physique, then retracting his assertion (he admitted later that he didn’t), is ineffective.
Additional, the lacking physique of the murdered sufferer, together with different circumstantial proof, wouldn’t be price coming into a retrial. The proof checklist in a brand new trial would look very totally different from the unique one in 2014. A retrial is just not a slam dunk. The prosecution would need first to establish {that a} new jury can return a responsible verdict with the proof they’ve. It might not be doable with the present ones.
Moreover, with ten years of media and public deliberations on Mr. Palmer’s guilt or innocence, the pool of individuals from whom a jury can be chosen for a retrial can be tainted. With such “mud within the face of Jamaica’s Courtroom of Appeals,” would a retrial be honest to VK and the folks of Jamaica?
Ten years is plenty of time taken from an individual’s life. The federal government, prefer it or not, can be contemplating whether or not it desires to afford a legal responsibility lawsuit for improper imprisonment, ache and struggling, lack of income, and many others. Or pursuing a trial that the folks might not need, with much less assure of conviction, could be a expensive enterprise.
The Vybz Kartel case is probably going probably the most distinguished in Jamaica’s historical past: If VK goes free, will civil society resolve to maintain the Privy Council? Will questions come up concerning whether or not Jamaica is able to tackle its closing courtroom of justice or agree to just accept the Caribbean Courtroom of Justice (CCJ)? Academically, it sounds good to take away the Privy Council, however as of at the moment, pundits will problem the appellate courtroom’s talents to make honest and neutral choices.
With this technical determination, the Privy Council took the burden of proof from VK and positioned it within the fingers of Jamaica’s justice system. That is unlucky, however true. On this state of affairs, it seems that the London-based courtroom is pleading with Jamaica and Jamaicans to retain them as the ultimate courtroom of justice. Is that this a legitimate consideration?
The prosecution case seems to be bleak with all these very legitimate points. Due to this fact, Mr. Adidja Palmer has a superb probability of returning to Jamaica’s streets together with his candy music.
