15 YEARS FOR BETRAYING THE PEOPLE:

I have long main­tained, that most of the prob­lems real or per­ceived, inher­ent in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is cen­tered around the lib­er­al­ism of judges.

So called extra judi­cial killings,witnesses not appear­ing to tes­ti­fy, the killing of wit­ness­es, cit­i­zens tak­ing the laws into their own hands,citizens not both­er­ing to report crimes, all of the afore­men­tioned ‚has at their Genesis , Judges giv­ing slap on the wrist.This police offi­cer betrayed the trust placed in him.A trust that asked him to pro­tect and serve the Jamaican peo­ple , he betrayed that trust in the most egre­gious , stom­ach turn­ing man­ner. This Supreme court Judge Horace Marsh had an oppor­tu­ni­ty to send a strong mes­sage and he failed. He failed the coun­try , but his great­est fail­ure is to the arrest­ing Officers, who had the char­ac­ter to bring one of their own to jus­tice. He had an oppur­tu­ni­ty to send a strong mes­sage, say­ing once and for all, this will not be tolerated.

He failed.

Sergeant Russel Robinson a mid­dle man­ag­er with­in the JCF must have been aware of the image prob­lems the force had . Over the years Police offi­cers had dragged the name of the once proud Agency through the mud, sub­ject­ing the Agency to ridicule, pri­mar­i­ly by those whose char­ac­ter does not qual­i­fy them to crit­i­cize any­one. And oth­ers who have a vest­ed inter­est in tear­ing down, and dam­a­goging the agency .During my 10 year ser­vice I arrest­ed there cops and charged them with crimes.On each occa­sion the case was prop­er­ly pre­pared, all three were con­vict­ed and even­tu­al­ly boot­ed from the Constabulary. My posi­tion was always that we could not be in the same agency.

Despite the fore­gone, nei­ther of those offi­cers I charged ‚were involved in sell­ing guns nor ammu­ni­tion to criminals.This is one of the most egre­gious and rep­re­hen­si­ble cas­es of police mis­con­duct I have ever heard of ‚9’540 rounds of ammu­ni­tion, and 18 guns , this begs the ques­tion, how many guns and rounds of ammu­ni­tion did Robinson sell? .How many peo­ple died because of those guns and ammu­ni­tion, to include police officers.That is not the only issue here, the guns were sup­posed to be in the pro­tec­tive cus­tody of the police. That by itself make my stom­ach turn. Police offi­cers in the precinct of the court alleged­ly voiced their dis­gust at the sen­tence hand­ed down, I can imag­ine how they would feel from an image stand-point , but I assume those offi­cers were also think­ing about all the cops that were killed over the years. Imagining that they could have fall­en vic­tim to those thou­sands of rounds of ammu­ni­tion, and high-pow­ered weapons Robinson put in the underworld.

Again let me be clear clear , Jamaica is not going to solve its ter­ror­ism prob­lem if Judges con­tin­ue to release crim­i­nals back onto the streets with a slap on the wrists, Interest groups such as the crim­i­nal right Jamaicans for jus­tice and tri­al lawyers have argued vehe­ment­ly that judges must be allowed free­dom to make judi­cial deci­sions based on the spe­cial cir­cum­stances of each case.They argue that Politicians/​Parliament seek­ing to add guide­lines is tan­ta­mount to med­dling with the judi­cia­ry an inde­pen­dent arm of Government​.As a cit­i­zen of this plan­et I agree that Judges must be able to look at mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances in each case and issue their judge­ment accord­ing­ly. What I dis­agree with is, that they should have no guide­lines. Race cars are allowed to go real­ly fast, but they are still required to stay on the tracks, Airplanes have wide open skies , but they have routes, Ships tra­verse ship­ping lanes, despite the enor­mi­ty of the Oceans .Judges must be giv­en min­i­mum guidelines.This removes the prospect of cor​rup​tion​.It removes the pos­si­bil­i­ty of advo­ca­cy from the bench.And it puts crim­i­nals where they belong, in jail.Judges are not elect­ed by the peo­ple, it falls on the peo­ple’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives, the Parliamentarians to in fact estab­lish guide­lines for them to fol­low. Disgusting crim­i­nal sup­port­ing groups , and the rapa­cious vul­tures called crim­i­nal Lawyers have their own axe to grind , nei­ther of which includes a safe peace­ful, crime free society.

This is a per­fect case for the over­turn of the Judicial sys­tem. So that the Country can start afresh.

mike beck­les:

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