Judges Fraser & Morrison Cannot Both Be Right With Disparate Sentences…

On December 2^nd, I respond­ed in a way that I am nev­er proud of when I am pissed; my response was after the twelve (12) year sen­tence hand­ed down to a dou­ble mur­der­er by Bertram Morrison.
In sen­tenc­ing 21-year-old Linden Powell for dou­ble mur­der, Morrison also ruled that he would be avail­able for parole after only ten (10) years.
The dou­ble mur­der­er was also pre­vi­ous­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to 18 months impris­on­ment at hard labor on each of two counts of firearm offenses.
That 18 months sen­tence giv­en by anoth­er judge was incred­i­bly offen­sive giv­en the nation’s crime pan­dem­ic. However, the tragedy is that he was giv­en such a lenient sen­tence, and we see the direct result of how these unelect­ed Judges are ruin­ing our coun­try from behind closed doors.
My out­burst on the 2^nd lacked focus, I am the first to admit, but I can­not write in beau­ti­ful lan­guage when I see what they are get­ting away with.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​t​h​e​-​m​o​n​g​r​e​l​-​j​u​d​g​e​s​-​w​h​o​-​a​r​e​-​t​u​r​n​i​n​g​-​m​a​s​s​-​m​u​r​d​e​r​e​r​s​-​l​o​o​s​e​-​i​n​-​j​a​m​a​i​ca/

The sen­tence hand­ed down by Bertram Morrison is a trav­es­ty to the Judicial process, to the Jamaica peo­ple, and a clear wink and nod to the mur­der­ers who are run­ning amok in our country.
More than any­thing, the extra­or­di­nar­i­ly light sen­tence for what was two mur­ders brings into sharp focus some­thing I have been report­ing on, cor­rup­tion with­in the judi­cial system.
I do not know whether this was a case where mon­ey changed hands. I am [not] say­ing that mon­ey changed hands; I am say­ing that these kinds of sen­tences cause spec­u­la­tion, which does no good to the process.
If I had the slight­est bit of infor­ma­tion that mon­ey changed hands, I would report it here.
If and when I get to the bot­tom of these acts of betray­al against the Jamaican peo­ple, I will not be shy about report­ing it, as what pass­es for media in our coun­try does daily.

Since I do not yet have evi­dence of malfea­sance, let us exam­ine the pos­si­ble ratio­nale for this out­ra­geous sen­tence, which the Director Of Public Prosecution is appro­pri­ate­ly appealing.
♦The sus­pect plead guilty. Pleading guilty to a crime is com­mend­able when an offend­er is caught. Prosecutors have always sought to give the accused some con­ces­sion for com­ing clean and help­ing police and pros­e­cu­tors catch oth­er dan­ger­ous criminals.
In this case, pros­e­cu­tors asked for more than dou­ble the time that Morrison gave the defendant.
What mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances could there be to over­come the aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances of this cold-blood­ed killer’s dou­ble mur­ders, in addi­tion to his past crim­i­nal his­to­ry? If there were any mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances we cer­tain­ly haven’t heard of any.
Here we have a crim­i­nal whom the police removed from the streets after being arrest­ed on firearms charges twice and was released by these crim­i­nal judges, and what did he do? He went out and mur­dered two peo­ple that we know of, and God knows how many more.
As a for­mer police offi­cer, I strong­ly sup­port­ed this move becom­ing a real­i­ty in Jamaica (grant­i­ng some lenien­cy to crim­i­nals who plead guilty and assist­ing law enforce­ment in fur­ther investigations).
I should have remem­bered that there’s noth­ing right­eous and good that Jamaicans in posi­tions of pow­er will not desecrate.
What these Judges are doing is des­e­crat­ing our judi­cial process.
I cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly opposed Delroy Chuck’s scorched earth approach to cut the sen­tence an accused would receive in half sim­ply because they plead guilty to the charge/​s.
Delroy Chuck serves the inter­est of crim­i­nals, as do many high­ly placed gov­ern­ment offi­cials in the Island nation; the con­se­quences to the coun­try have been devastating.
I pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed that Delroy Chuck’s dri­ve to remove mur­der cas­es from courts dock­ets sim­ply because they have been there for five years is tan­ta­mount to the tax­pay­ers pay­ing Chuck to rep­re­sent Jamaica’s murderers.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​w​h​y​-​p​a​y​-​d​e​l​r​o​y​-​c​h​u​c​k​-​w​i​t​h​-​t​a​x​-​d​o​l​l​a​r​s​-​t​o​-​l​o​b​b​y​-​f​o​r​-​c​r​i​m​i​n​a​ls/

♦Sentencing guide­lines. Sure, judges are guid­ed by sen­tenc­ing guide­lines, but this case had noth­ing to do with sen­tenc­ing guide­lines. This judge bla­tant­ly said ‘fuck you” to the Jamaican peo­ple by impos­ing a twelve-year sen­tence on the dou­ble-mur­der accused. So I once again call for new laws and sen­tenc­ing for mur­der­ers and those who com­mit oth­er vio­lent crimes. (See 10-point plan for Jamaica’s recov­ery below.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​t​h​i​s​-​1​0​-​p​o​i​n​t​-​p​l​a​n​-​h​a​s​-​b​e​e​n​-​o​n​-​t​h​e​-​t​a​b​l​e​-​f​o​r​-​a​-​d​e​c​a​de/
We can under­stand the idea that police offi­cers should exem­pli­fy a high­er stan­dard of con­duct than the aver­age cit­i­zen. I can live with that idea since cops are tasked with bring­ing crim­i­nals to justice.
However, inside those police uni­forms are human beings just like every­one else. Notwithstanding, I will not spend time argu­ing that police should­n’t be held to a high­er stan­dard than most — I am in agreement.
However, let us exam­ine anoth­er case right there in Jamaica, adju­di­cat­ed by anoth­er judge in which some­one lost his life.
The dif­fer­ence, in this case, was that a police offi­cer was alleged­ly involved.

In 2017 for­mer police con­sta­ble Mark Russell was sen­tenced to life in prison for assist­ing in the exe­cu­tion-style killing of a 17-year-old gang­ster in 2007. Former con­sta­ble Russell will have to serve 24 years in prison before being eli­gi­ble for parole.
Constable Russell was assigned to the Hunts Bay Police Station when he was accused of assist­ing in the crime. Judge David Fraser sen­tenced con­sta­ble Russell.
Fraser said Russell would not have been eli­gi­ble for parole until after 30 years if he had not already spent six years in cus­tody — one year in the United States, where he had fled, and the remain­ing years in Jamaica after being extradited.
No one in their right mind could rea­son­ably try to negate what the accused con­sta­ble did and was found guilty of.
I also agree that if the con­sta­ble com­mit­ted the act for which he was found guilty, the sen­tence hand­ed down by the court is in line with the sen­tences that mur­der­ers should receive across the board, no exception…
The glar­ing incon­sis­ten­cy in these two sen­tences demon­strates a cou­ple of things.
(1) There are two jus­tice sys­tems in Jamaica, one that aids vio­lent crim­i­nals and high­ly placed Jamaicans, and anoth­er that pun­ish­es ordi­nary Jamaicans and errant cops.
(2) That either of the two judges is dan­ger­ous­ly wrong; that David Fraser demon­strat­ed ani­mus toward Constable Russell in the sen­tence hand­ed down and his utter­ances; Or that Bertram Morrison direct­ly used his trust­ed office to aid and give suc­cor to a dou­ble murderer.

In respond­ing to pleas from mem­bers of the cler­gy (a) who knew Russell since he was a child,(b) that he was not a ser­i­al crim­i­nal,© and that he did not even fire the shot that killed the dead crim­i­nal who had fired at mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces; Fraser said he had to con­sid­er those police offi­cers are entrust­ed to pro­tect and serve the pub­lic, but that the ver­dict of the jury indi­cat­ed their belief that Russell did the oppo­site of that.
Fraser added that he con­sid­ered that Russell was not the shoot­er and that the social inquiry report spoke high­ly of him and echoed the sen­ti­ments of the cler­gy members.
Constable Russell though guilty, aid­ed and abet­ted a sin­gle mur­der. Constable Russell’s life was spent being a police offi­cer; he did not even pull the trigger.
What would have been the sen­tence hand­ed down to Constable Russell had David Fraser not (a) tak­en into account the social inquiry report, (b) had Russel pulled the trig­ger, © Russell had assist­ed in more than one homi­cide, (d) Constable Russell was accused of actu­al­ly aid­ing in more than a sin­gle murder,(e) had cold-blood­ed­ly killed two people,(f) had a vio­lent back­ground and (g) pre­vi­ous­ly con­vict­ed on weapons and ammu­ni­tion charges?
Double mur­der­er Linden Powell killed two peo­ple, and those are only the ones we know of.
These two sen­tences are the most egre­gious abuse of the con­cept of aggra­vat­ing and mit­i­gat­ing con­sid­er­a­tions when crim­i­nals are to be sentenced.
This abuse of our jus­tice sys­tem can­not be allowed to stand.

Both ver­dicts can­not be cor­rect in the same small country.

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This arti­cle was updat­ed after its first posting.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.