How The Courts Contributed To The Rise Of The Crime Culture

One of the things which total­ly pissed me off dur­ing my 10 year stint in the Jamaica Constabulary Force more than any­thing was the way cer­tain defense lawyers treat­ed the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem as offi­cers of the courts . Some would swoop into the court-room with an air of utter supe­ri­or­i­ty mak­ing the process about their grandios­i­ty than the sanc­ti­ty and fideli­ty of the process.
Not every Lawyer were divas, I had ter­rif­ic work­ing rela­tion­ships with some defense lawyers who were true pro­fes­sion­als. On the oth­er hand many oth­ers were con­sumed with their own sense of supe­ri­or­i­ty and impor­tance and they expect­ed the courts to acqui­esce to their wish­es and demands.
It was because of that air of arro­gance that per­me­at­ed the behav­ior of many of these lawyers why As a young offi­cer who was con­stant­ly before the courts I took no lip from any judge about being late for a case.
One of my famous dust-up was well doc­u­ment­ed with one of the bul­lies of the bench Lenslie Wolf who ulti­mate­ly retired as chief justice .

With foot firm­ly placed on the seat many of the ego-mani­a­cal lawyers would ask for adjourn­ments because they haven’t been paid, under­stand­ably, but they would also bitch and whine when the pros­e­cu­tion’s case is not ready because a wit­ness can­not be locat­ed or the foren­sic report is not ready. Did I men­tion that in those days there was one foren­sic office in Allman Town with One Forensic expert deal­ing with all of the Island’s foren­sics? Oh well I guess I just did. Nah that was not back in the 1950’s that was in the ear­ly 90’s.

I wish I had a dol­lar for every arti­cle I have writ­ten over the last sev­er­al years detail­ing just how the crim­i­nal courts have con­tributed to the crime sit­u­a­tion on the Island. Despite this it is the Police which takes the brunt of the blame for the dam­age done to the sys­tem. Hardly any­one speak to the arro­gance , over acqui­es­cence and the lib­er­al­ism with which the judi­cia­ry approach­es the dis­pen­sa­tion of jus­tice, save and except for a few no non­sense judges of the past.
The court­room is a place where jus­tice is sup­posed to be dis­pensed equi­tably and fair­ly not just in fact but it must also appear to be done.
Jamaica’s court-rooms are cus­tom­ar­i­ly a place where defense coun­sel and tri­al judges are chum­my , pros­e­cu­tors are tol­er­at­ed, police offi­cers and the bench are dis­tant ene­mies. That has been the gen­er­al rule save and except for a few judges and cer­tain police officers.
In many instances the ani­mus com­ing from the bench toward the police cre­at­ed dis­re­spect on the part of offend­ers before the court.
Jamaica’s crim­i­nals have keen sens­es they under­stand the cracks in they sys­tem and they exploit them fully
Jamaica’s crim­i­nals do not miss much, police offi­cers who tol­er­at­ed judges dis­re­spect got no respect from the streets . Officers who did not allow them­selves to be dis­re­spect­ed were high­ly respect­ed and revered.

Not much has changed for the bet­ter since the ear­ly 90’s in the way cas­es are han­dled in the crim­i­nal courts. In fact there is much evi­dence that the court sys­tem is a a cesspool of incom­pe­tence , crim­i­nal cod­dling and in many cas­es corruption.
In a recent dis­cus­sion I had with a prac­tic­ing defense attor­ney she defend­ed her pro­fes­sion say­ing that in stud­ies done it is found that most adjourn­ments are request­ed by the pros­e­cu­tor and not defense counsel.
Of course I under­stand the police is gross­ly incom­pe­tent and in many cas­es cor­rupt, but I have seen noth­ing which would con­vince me she is cor­rect in her asser­tion. Speaking on the issue of the inor­di­nate delays with­in the sys­tem recent­ly appoint­ed Minister of Justice Marlene Malahoo Forte a for­mer res­i­dent mag­is­trate said she would be meet­ing with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Jamaican Bar Association and the Advocates Association of Jamaica to address the long-stand­ing issue of the slow pace at which jus­tice is deliv­ered in the local court system.(Jg)

“I will be meet­ing with my col­leagues at the bar in short order, begin­ning with the lead­er­ship of the bar asso­ci­a­tion and advo­ca­cy asso­ci­a­tion, and I am con­fi­dent that we can min­imise the delay (of court case res­o­lu­tion), . “Delay in our courts is not just a mat­ter of per­cep­tion, it is a real­i­ty. Many peo­ple are wait­ing for their cas­es to be tried, and for some, their lives hang in the bal­ance while they wait,” said Malahoo Forte, who is also a for­mer mag­is­trate. “Some use var­i­ous delay tac­tics and manip­u­late the sys­tem­at­ic weak­ness­es to their advan­tage and to the frus­tra­tion of oth­ers. “No one par­ty is respon­si­ble for the prob­lem of delay, and no one par­ty can ade­quate­ly address the prob­lem,” argued Malahoo Forte. “Everyone will have to work togeth­er and exer­cise the appro­pri­ate lead­er­ship in their are­na. The min­istries of jus­tice and nation­al secu­ri­ty must col­lab­o­rate, in a new way, with bench and bar, on the leg­isla­tive and admin­is­tra­tive bar­ri­ers to tri­als being held with­in a rea­son­able time.”

Is Delroy Chuck King?

Literally every­one bears some respon­si­bil­i­ty but some are more cul­pa­ble than oth­ers. It was not so long ago that Minister Of Justice Delroy Chuck sug­gest­ed that cas­es in the sys­tem over five years with­out res­o­lu­tion be wiped from the books.
An amnesty for mur­der­ers and rapists…
At the time he made the com­ments I wrote an angry Article in which I won­dered whether Delroy Chuck was crowned King of Jamaica and there­fore had the pow­er to decree amnesty to mass mur­der­ers, rapists and oth­er dan­ger­ous crim­i­nal sim­ply because the incom­pe­tent cor­rupt court sys­tem can­not do it’s job.
This is how things gets done in Jamaica though, one per­son say some­thing and it become the way things are done. No one includ­ing Chuck both­ered to think that defense lawyers have gamed the sys­tem for years result­ing in the back­log in the sys­tem and the ulti­mate frus­tra­tion of pros­e­cu­tion witnesses.
Maybe Chuck Malahoo Forte and oth­ers before them real­ly want it this way . How can they even begin to talk about social jus­tice , human rights, civ­il rights when they allow mur­der­ers to roam the streets and kill at will?

It is that Lunacy why the so-called inves­tiga­tive agency (inde­com) sup­pos­ed­ly inves­ti­gates every police shoot­ing whether there are alle­ga­tions of impro­pri­ety or not. Too many chiefs not enough indians.
It is that brain-dead stu­pid­i­ty which caused Fred Hickling an old shrink to opine that the police could have avoid­ed killing a man alleged­ly of unsound mind who grabbed an offi­cer’s auto­mat­ic rifle and refused com­mand to drop the weapon. Hickling who has offered Psychiatric opin­ions for years stat­ed that though the man was point­ing the weapon at police they could have con­tact­ed the Hospital and avoid­ed killing him.
Clearly this jack­ass has spent too much time in the loonie bin he has him­self become a total nutcase.
Notwithstanding that idi­ot­ic com­ment there are more than enough fools who believe that that his stu­pid com­ment was a viable option for offi­cers who were star­ing down the bar­rel of that AR15.

The very notion that any­one could con­sid­er say­ing to alleged mur­der­ers you are free to go because the courts can­not get it’s act togeth­er is proof pos­i­tive these peo­ple does not care about the vic­tims of crime.
It is exact­ly sug­ges­tions like that which gives judges and defense attor­neys licence to abro­gate the process in favor of dan­ger­ous criminals.
It’s exact­ly why no politi­cian on the Island except JAG Smith has ever been impris­oned . It is exact­ly the shit with­ing the shit-stem why a politi­cian could walk free with­out even answer­ing to the charges he was arrest­ed for in a clear-cut case of pet­ty thiev­ery. In none of the dis­cus­sions about deal­ing with the present state of the courts sys­tem is the inter­est of crime vic­tims a pri­or­i­ty. What they are focused on is the amount of time it takes to get res­o­lu­tion of cas­es, a sit­u­a­tion they created.
Ironically as they lament the fact that accused crim­i­nals are forced to wait for case res­o­lu­tions they com­plete­ly ignore the trau­ma crime vic­tims feel when those who mur­der and rape their loved ones are ulti­mate­ly returned to the streets with­out pay­ing for their crimes.

Jamaica con­tin­ue to see record num­ber of mur­ders, politi­cians and police tell the pub­lic , “oh it’s most­ly peo­ple who are engaged in the lot­to scam game who are being killed” . Sure, sure , they aren’t people.
The shock­ing real­i­ty is that the mech­a­nisms in place are breed­ing crime not cur­tail­ing it.
Poor rela­tion­ship between pros­e­cu­tor’s office and police.
Chummy rela­tions between bench and bar blurs the lines, as such it’s some­times dif­fi­cult to tell whether judges are tru­ly judges or defense attorneys.
The Police as the ene­my , is not a new phe­nom­e­non, many on the bench has over sev­er­al decades used that perch to dam­age the police’s authority.

The Jamaican peo­ple are law­less , the politi­cians and opin­ion makes basi­cal­ly have shit for brains. The mur­der mad­ness can stop in a mat­ter of months.
Simply put the opin­ion­at­ed ass­holes who have some­thing to say about every damn thing need to shut the f**k up and get out the way.
The stu­pid politi­cians need to rec­og­nize that pret­ty soon they will not be able to do any­thing about the gangs oper­at­ing there.
Let the lessons of 2010 sink in for a moment , it was the secu­ri­ty forces which hand­ed Jamaica back to the shit for brain politi­cians after mer­ce­nar­ies made their pow­er known. Stop the damn talk­ing and put tough laws in place to stop this down­ward spiral.