THE APPEALS PROCESS

The court of appeals has ruled to reaf­firm the deci­sion of the tri­al court in the case of dance­hall DJ, Adidjah Palmer, oth­er­wise knowns as Vybz Kartel, and the two accused who were con­vict­ed along with him.
Attorneys rep­re­sent­ing the trio, President of the Senate Tom Tavares Finson, Valerie Neita-Robertson, Bert Samuels, & Oswett Smith are all dis­ap­point­ed in the deci­sion of the court.
It is nat­ur­al for the defense attor­ney’s to feign anger or sur­prise, or both, when they do not get their desired out­comes.
And so Finson was out­raged at the length of time it took for the court to arrive at the ver­dict it did.
“This is a trav­es­ty, it is unprece­dent­ed and it is out­ra­geous … and the Privy Council will no doubt have some­thing to say about that,” Finson told local journalists.

In December of 2019, Finson, wrote to the court with a view to find­ing out when a deci­sion would be made in the case. At the time 18-months had passed with­out a deci­sion.
One day before the ver­dict of the appel­late court was hand­ed down, I too won­dered why this deci­sion took the time it did.
As far as we know there has been no answer to that ques­tion, but it is impor­tant to rec­on­cile that the deci­sion of the court was a unan­i­mous one by the pan­el of three judges.
The defense attor­neys say they ful­ly expect­ed to go to the privy coun­cil, the final court of appeals based in London.
The main accused Palmer is a man of means so I’m sure attor­neys are not con­strained about the length to which they will go to get their way.
It is dif­fi­cult how­ev­er to see how they will receive the out­comes t they are hop­ing for in a crim­i­nal tri­al when in which they are not mak­ing argu­ments of uncon­sti­tu­tion­al actions against their clients.
We’ll see.….….

INCARCERATION

In recent times infor­ma­tion came to the fore that Kartel has con­tin­ued his record­ing career from behind bars. People close to the con­vict­ed mur­der­er have sought to down­play those claims and have argued that he had a port­fo­lio of unre­leased music that is just now being released.
But crit­ics are not so sure, they adamant­ly claim that issues the artist talks about were not around at the time he was incar­cer­at­ed.
More recent­ly he was alleged to have used a cell­phone from his cell to record and make an insta­gram post.
After an out­cry in which many claimed that Kartel is receiv­ing spe­cial treat­ment as a for­mer star, a search of his cell was alleged­ly car­ried out and items of con­tra­band were alleged­ly found in his cell.

I am just as hung-ho as any­one when it comes to crim­i­nals pay­ing their debt to soci­ety. I am also all for there to be no spe­cial treat­ment met­ed out to any con­vict­ed per­son, par­tic­u­lar­ly per­sons con­vict­ed for com­mit­ting vio­lent crimes.
On the oth­er hand, how­ev­er, if I was doing life and (a) I had the resources to be able to acquire some of the trap­pings free­dom allows, and (b) there are cor­rupt offi­cials will­ing to acqui­esce to my demands for a price I would cer­tain­ly want to have those trap­pings free­dom allows.
The real­i­ty is that even though we may feel one way or the oth­er about con­vict­ed crim­i­nals, we should not direct our anger at the peo­ple who are locked up but at the pub­lic offi­cials who cor­rupt­ly sell their dig­ni­ty whether for a few dol­lars or because they are star-struck.
Wherever there are oppor­tu­ni­ties for rewards there will be peo­ple will­ing to take advan­tage. It is for that rea­son that inci­dents like the afore­men­tioned per­sist in Kartel’s, it is for those same rea­sons they per­sist wher­ev­er there are pris­ons and jails the world over.

REMEDIATING THE BREACHES

It is for those rea­sons that I am ful­ly in agree­ment with the Opposition spokesper­son on Justice, Donna Scott Mottley who has called for a thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion into the actions of cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers mon­i­tor­ing incar­cer­at­ed dance­hall artiste Vybz Kartel, fol­low­ing a recent seizure of con­tra­band from his cell.
Where I dis­agree with her is that there should be an inves­ti­ga­tion involv­ing those mon­i­tor­ing Kartel. The sys­tem just does not work that way, sure there should be an inves­ti­ga­tion in this inci­dent but it should not be about any indi­vid­ual inmate.
It is com­mon knowl­edge that there is wide­spread cor­rup­tion in all of the gov­ern­men­t’s ser­vices, the depart­ment of cor­rec­tions is no excep­tion.
Nevertheless, the head of the depart­ment should be hauled before a House com­mit­tee to explain what is being done about con­tra­band enter­ing the nation’s pris­ons.
It is not aways cor­rup­tion that allows for these breach­es, incom­pe­tence plays a part, and some­times a short­age of offi­cers may allow for breach­es to occur.
Nevertheless, the com­mis­sion­er should be brought in to explain what step is being tak­en to reme­di­ate this issue and if he can­not stop the breech­es he should be shown the door.

Last year the com­mis­sion­er of cor­rec­tions Ina Hunter was essen­tial­ly demot­ed and trans­ferred to the post of Chief Programme Officer in the Ministry of nation­al secu­ri­ty.
Lt Colonel Gary Rowe a vet­er­an offi­cer of 32-years was appoint­ed to the post.
You may have missed the obvi­ous, but as far as posi­tions of pow­er go, this admin­is­tra­tion in pow­er, is of the view that past offi­cers of the (JDF) Jamaica Defence Force, are a panacea to all of the nation’s prob­lems. (See the com­mis­sion­er of police, et-al)
Because this per­cep­tion has been cre­at­ed and foist­ed upon our col­lec­tive intel­lect, it is pru­dent to point out that not only have they not done bet­ter at what­ev­er posi­tions they have been ele­vat­ed to, in many cas­es the data shows that they have done expo­nen­tial­ly worse than oth­ers before them.
Notwithstanding, the lie seems to have tak­en hold and so there is no out­cry when they fail. The gen­er­al con­sen­sus seems to be that if they fail then no one could have done bet­ter.
This mind­set is preva­lent even among those who ought to know bet­ter.
It is arguably the rea­son that there is no call for fir­ing the com­mis­sion­er of cor­rec­tions in this mat­ter. In fact, there has been noth­ing but silence on all fronts.
Oh, and while we are on the sub­ject, vio­lent crime con­tin­ues to esca­late and there is no out­cry, no demand to change the com­mis­sion­er of police.
Because as you know he is from the army, if he can­not fix the prob­lem it can­not be fixed.[sarcasm]
Such blind idio­cy is the rea­son we are at a stand­still, spin­ning our wheels as a nation.

Which brings me to the final thought. The job of the over­sight agency INDECOM we were told is to inves­ti­gate inci­dents of abuse by the secu­ri­ty forces.
Withing its man­date is the JCF, JDF, & cor­rec­tions depart­ments.
It seems, how­ev­er, that between demo­niz­ing the police and cry­ing like a lit­tle bitch, there is no time left for the lit­tle pow­er-hun­gry turd of an INDECOM com­mis­sion­er Terrence Williams, to actu­al­ly do some­thing for the huge salary he is receiv­ing.
He found time to com­plain just days ago, that the gov­ern­ment did not give him and his bunch of do-noth­ing cronies, exclu­sion from the list of exempt­ed orga­ni­za­tions under the new cur­few order.
In a let­ter to the min­is­ter of nation­al secu­ri­ty, the lit­tle Napoleonic nar­cis­sist bitched that, “cit­i­zen reas­sur­ance across all sec­tors is crit­i­cal, espe­cial­ly dur­ing times of a glob­al cri­sis such as this COVID-19 virus. Curfew impo­si­tions are nec­es­sary and ful­ly under­stood, but INDECOM’s remit also pro­vides com­mu­ni­ty reas­sur­ance in this dif­fi­cult time where the risk of cit­i­zens’ rights are fur­ther lim­it­ed”.

In what is now a glob­al pan­dem­ic, one in which we have no idea when we will reach a plateau, this crazed pow­er-hun­gry, self-absorbed man wants every­thing to be about him.
At a time when the secu­ri­ty forces in coun­try after coun­try, are strug­gling to get cit­i­zens to stay off the streets, Terrence Williams wants to be on the streets get­ting in the way of the police.
Because if the media isn’t tak­ing about Terrence Williams, he has to find a way to inject him­self into the nar­ra­tive for his per­son­al rel­e­vance.
You sim­ply can­not make this up.

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.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs free of charge, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est pod­cast all free to you of course.

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.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs free of charge, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est pod­cast all free to you of course.

After an inor­di­nate­ly long time con­sid­er­ing the Vybz Kartel appeals, the court of appeals has indi­cat­ed to the lawyers of Kartel and his two co-accused that a ver­dict is forth­com­ing at 9:00 am Friday, April 3^rd.
Vybz Kartel, Shawn Storm, Kahira Jones, and Andre St. John were found guilty of mur­der in rela­tion to the killing of Clive ‘Lizard’ Williams in 2011.
The Appeals court has been con­sid­er­ing this case for approx­i­mate­ly 21 months, which gives rise to ques­tions as to what could have caused this appeals process to be tak­ing this long.
In December of 2019, lead defense lawyer for Kartel, Queen’s Counsel, Tom Tavares Finson, wrote to the court with a view to find­ing out when a deci­sion would be made in the case.
The court wrote to Finson that the three-judge pan­el’s deci­sion of his clien­t’s mur­der con­vic­tion was at an advanced stage.
We are in a new year and into the fourth month, final­ly, the court has indi­cat­ed that a ver­dict will be forth­com­ing.
But this writer can not feel con­fi­dent in the process of jus­tice one way or the oth­er when (a) this high pro­file appeals process has tak­en so long, & (b) giv­en the past lib­er­al his­to­ry of the court.
The ques­tion on my mind is why has it tak­en so long for this pan­el to reach a deci­sion in a case that has already been heard by a com­pe­tent jurist, the now-retired Justice Lennox Campbell?

No Jamaican who believes in the process of jus­tice and fair­ness should feel any degree of com­fort that this court is delib­er­at­ing this case.
The court of appeals has a his­to­ry of upend­ing per­fect­ly decid­ed cas­es and throw­ing out the con­vic­tions of dan­ger­ous mur­der­ers on the flim­si­est of alle­ga­tions of inves­tiga­tive, pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al, or judi­cial imper­fec­tion.
That is nev­er how the sys­tem was sup­posed to work.
As a police offi­cer involved in seri­ous cas­es, I saw all too well how pow­er­ful peo­ple with mon­ey were able to have the ver­dict they want­ed at the appeals court lev­el.
I have seen up close how mon­ey and good lawyers can make mir­a­cles hap­pen and per­fect­ly decid­ed cas­es are dis­missed on the most flim­sy and fraud­u­lent of alle­ga­tions of impro­pri­ety or mis­take.
The appeals courts process does not con­sid­er the mur­dered or the oth­er­wise aggriev­ed vic­tims, or the heinous crimes per­pe­trat­ed on them by the Island’s vicious mur­der­ers.
All that seems to mat­ter to the Islands appeals process is that there is main­tained a purist stan­dard that con­sid­ers only the con­vict­ed crim­i­nal, regard­less of the heinous nature of the crimes they have been con­vict­ed on.

Just today I spoke to a process with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem on a social media plat­form, that process is known as {stare deci­sis.} [In in the inter­est of full dis­clo­sure I am not a lawyer].
Stare deci­sis is a legal doc­trine that oblig­ates courts to fol­low his­tor­i­cal cas­es when mak­ing a rul­ing on a sim­i­lar case. Stare deci­sis ensures that cas­es with sim­i­lar sce­nar­ios and facts are approached in the same way. Simply put, it binds courts to fol­low legal prece­dents set by pre­vi­ous deci­sions.
[Stare deci­sis] is a Latin term mean­ing “to stand by that which is decid­ed.“
Before I go on I am oblig­at­ed to also say that I have no evi­dence one way or the oth­er as to the guilt or inno­cence of either or all of the three con­vict­ed mur­der­ers.
Additionally, regard­less of how hor­ri­ble a per­son may be, no per­son should be con­vict­ed wrong­ful­ly for a crime he or she did not com­mit.
On the oth­er hand, it is a gross mis­car­riage of jus­tice, when a court at what­ev­er lev­el, allows con­vict­ed crim­i­nals to walk free because of minor tech­ni­cal­i­ties which do not detract from the body of evi­dence that was pre­sent­ed at tri­al, or worse, because they have been cor­rupt­ly com­pro­mised.
Jamaica’s court of appeal has been known time and again to ignore the estab­lished doc­trine of stare deci­sis and over­turn the tri­al court’s find­ings.
In some instances, the court went out of its way to allow new­ly man­u­fac­tured evi­dence into the appeals process, none of which was at the tri­al stage.
The case of Kartel and his two cronies also saw the appeals court allow in new evi­dence from the defense that was not at the tri­al 9 years ago.
An appeals court has no duty to inter­fere with a ver­dict that was arrived at fair­ly, just­ly and with­out malfea­sance.
An appeals court should let stand a ver­dict unless there is new sub­stan­ti­at­ed evi­dence of inves­tiga­tive, pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al, or judi­cial mis­con­duct.
A ver­dict arrived at with­out those bul­let points should not be inter­fered with by an appel­late court.

The appeals court has a duty to the nation, not to pop­u­lar cul­ture, not to demigods, not to trail lawyers, but to the rule of law, to make a rea­soned deci­sion that even if there are minor imper­fec­tions in the prosecution’s case they do not rise to enough to change the ver­dict.
An acquit­tal would basi­cal­ly set up the state to even­tu­al­ly pay out tens, poten­tial­ly hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars to three mur­der con­victs.
A retri­al of this case would also be the same as an acquit­tal as there is no way they would con­vict these con­vict­ed mur­der­ers 9‑years lat­er using the same evi­dence and wit­ness­es.
Literally, every demigod that has been removed from the streets has been removed either by police bul­lets, street jus­tice, or by the United States.
The court sys­tem has been an abysmal fail­ure when it comes to pros­e­cut­ing, con­vict­ing, and retain­ing the con­vic­tions of the very few it man­ages to con­vict, pre­cise­ly because of the vast lib­er­al­ism at the appel­late lev­el.
This fail­ure has turned our coun­try into one of the most vio­lent coun­tries on earth. Violent mur­der­ers have very lit­tle regard for the process. They have no fear that the sys­tem has the guts or the integri­ty to con­vict them, and when con­vinced, they are com­fort­able they will be able to buy the out­comes they desire.

UPDATED

The court of appeals has issued its ver­dict: 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 pop-cul­ture in its deci­sion mak­ing.
By allow­ing this ver­dict of guilt to stand, it gives law-abid­ing Jamaicans 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.

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.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs free of charge, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est pod­cast all free to you of course.