Appeals Court Reaffirms Guilty Verdict In Kartel Murder Case…

The court of appeals has issued its ver­dict in the Vybz Kartel mur­der case: The three-judge pan­el reaf­firmed the deci­sion of guilt the tri­al court hand­ed down to the three accused mur­der­ers in 2011.
We applaud the deci­sion of the court not to inter­fere with the just deci­sion of the tri­al court, or to be blind­ed by sta­tus, or an igno­rant, hedo­nis­tic idol­a­trous pop-cul­ture in its deci­sion mak­ing.
By allow­ing this ver­dict of guilt to stand, it gives law-abid­ing Jamaicans hope. Hope that all is not lost. That even though our coun­try faces grave dan­ger from anar­chists, we have the abil­i­ty to pull back from the edge of the abyss, one step at a time, using the rule of law as our pointer.

The appel­late court did not hand down a rul­ing as to whether the [sen­tence] hand­ed down by the tri­al judge will stand or be reduced.
The court asserts that the tri­o’s defense team can make a sub­mis­sion for a reduced sen­tence if they chose to.
This is a stan­dard pro­to­col for appel­late courts to respond this way.
On the oth­er hand, the defense team of the trio of mur­der­ers, now have to con­tend with the dual sce­nario of whether to (a) seek redress from the Privy Council in England, which is the final court of appeals, with no new evi­dence or infor­ma­tion of inves­tiga­tive, pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al or judi­cial mis­con­duct or mis­takes, or (b) to file a motion to the court for a reduced sen­tence with no new evi­dence that would go to the mit­i­ga­tion of those sentences.

Actions have con­se­quences, it as about time that the organs of gov­ern­ment are stood up to defend the Jamaican con­sti­tu­tion, the rule of law and by exten­sion the Jamaican peo­ple.
Those who would act con­trary to, and in defi­ance of our laws and norms, must be made aware in no uncer­tain terms, that the con­se­quences of their actions are going to be severe and unequiv­o­cal, regard­less of who they are or who they know.
And to the seg­ment of the pop­u­la­tion that is deter­mined to cre­ate anar­chy and to give sup­port & suc­cor to law­less­ness, let this be a les­son to you that a new day is dawn­ing, you will be made to respect the laws of our coun­try.
This writer salutes the court for look­ing at the evi­dence and mak­ing a deci­sion that is in line with the law.
And most of all “letting the deci­sion stand” [stare decisis]

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Jamaican police Detective cor­po­ral, busi­ness­man, researcher, and blog­ger. 
He is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al web­sites.
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