Thursday, the Privy Council quashed the Adidja Palmer (VK: Vybz Kartel) case. The London-based court docket 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 Court docket of Appeals, based mostly on the unique case, is a extra urgent problem right this moment. The three Court docket of Enchantment Judges, Frank Wiliams, Dennis Morrison, and Patrick Brooks, agreed with the decrease courts to uphold the conviction of Adidja Palmer. That court docket selected the identical inconsistent proof and didn’t overturn the decrease court docket’s blatant miscarriage of justice within the defendant’s conviction.
A tainted jury in most judicial programs is trigger for an instantaneous mistrial. The Adidja Palmer case mustn’t have continued with a tainted jury.
A serious setback
Vybz Kartel has been in jail for longer than ten years now, and the Privy Council, which Jamaica is contemplating eradicating as the ultimate court docket of justice, has determined to quash the case, sending it again to the identical Court docket of Appeals that upheld the choice of the unique conviction. Is that this choice by the Privy Counsel a slap within the face of our justice system?
On the appellate stage in Jamaica, with the proof offered, the difficulty is not going to decide VK’s guilt or innocence however moderately a technicality on whether or not he’s free of imprisonment or retried.
Right this moment, this main setback for the native justice system within the Privy Council choice is that this might have been prevented if a retrial had been referred to as in 2014 as a substitute of the ultimate court docket 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 determine on guilt or innocence. The Court docket of Appeals in Jamaica should make one in all two choices: free Vybz Kartel or return the case to the decrease court docket for retrial.
Does a retrial make sense now?
A retrial can be expensive, and there are different points with the trial in 2014 if a retrial turns into crucial with the Privy Counsel’s choice. The prosecution should fastidiously evaluate proof to find out whether or not they can win a brand new trial. Contaminated proof must be faraway from the checklist of proof to forestall one other appellate misstep. For instance, they have to take away the contaminated cellphone proof; whereas in custody, the police made calls from VK’s mobile phone. That’s a major downside. Additional, they didn’t defend the cellphone’s SD card; that is additionally tainted proof. Moreover, Lamar “Wee” Chow’s (prosecution’s prime witness) inconsistent account of seeing the useless 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 value getting into a retrial. The proof checklist in a brand new trial would look very totally different from the unique one in 2014. A retrial isn’t a slam dunk. The prosecution would need first to determine {that a} new jury can return a responsible verdict with the proof they’ve. It might not be potential with the prevailing 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 Court docket of Appeals,” would a retrial be truthful to VK and the folks of Jamaica?
Ten years is a whole lot of time taken from an individual’s life. The federal government, prefer it or not, can be contemplating whether or not it needs to afford a legal responsibility lawsuit for unsuitable imprisonment, ache and struggling, lack of income, and so on. Or pursuing a trial that the folks might not need, with much less assure of conviction, generally is a expensive enterprise.
Penalties for Jamaica’s authorized system
The Vybz Kartel case is probably going essentially the most distinguished in Jamaica’s historical past: If he goes free, will civil society determine to maintain the Privy Council? Will questions come up concerning whether or not Jamaica is able to tackle its remaining court docket of justice or agree to just accept the Caribbean Court docket of Justice (CCJ)? Academically, it sounds good to take away the Privy Council, however as of right this moment, pundits will problem the appellate court docket’s skills to make truthful and neutral choices.
With this technical choice, the Privy Council took the burden of proof from Vybz Kartel 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 court docket is pleading with Jamaica and Jamaicans to retain them as the ultimate court docket of justice. Is that this a sound consideration?
The prosecution case seems to be bleak with all these very legitimate points. Subsequently, Mr. Adidja Palmer has likelihood of returning to Jamaica’s streets together with his candy music.
