New Year, Same Bull‑s**t From The Same Old Bigshots

As a new year begins to take shape the very same issues which dom­i­nat­ed the news last year large­ly remain unsolved still.
And true to form in my native Jamaica the big fish are all jock­ey­ing to get their names in the local news­pa­pers to con­tin­ue their rel­e­vance as big fish in a tiny ticky-ticky pool.

POLITICAL

Now there is a raft of issues on the front burn­er, not the least of which is the Opposition leader, Peter Phillips grand­stand­ing about not being able to meet with the coun­try’s Prime min­is­ter until January 7^th to dis­cuss his par­ty’s dis­qui­et with the con­tin­u­a­tion of the states of emergencies(SOE), and then qui­et­ly meet­ing with the Prime Minister to dis­cuss the issue.
As I wrote yes­ter­day Peter Phillips seems to think that he is the Prime Minister based on the way he has been behav­ing in exert­ing lever­age he clear­ly does not have.
Now it appears some­one told him “take the damn meet­ing” and so he did.

THE RULE OF LAW

Then there are oth­er issues of import in the coun­try, like the rule of law.
This brings into focus the reg­u­lar pigs who eat con­stant­ly at the slop trough of decep­tion and lies.
Speaking to local media one such pig, well known crim­i­nal lawyer Bert Samuels opined:
That law­mak­ers enact spe­cial sanc­tions for law-enforce­ment per­son­nel proven to have “plant­ed” evi­dence on an accused per­son to secure a con­vic­tion. For Bert Samuels, the max­i­mum penal­ty for such action should be twice the sen­tence pre­scribed for the crim­i­nal charge against the accused per­son.
As a fur­ther deter­rent, Samuels wants law-enforce­ment per­son­nel found to have plant­ed evi­dence to secure a con­vic­tion to share the finan­cial bur­den where their actions result in a suc­cess­ful law­suit against the State.
“In any suc­cess­ful civ­il suit aris­ing from an acquit­tal where evi­dence was plant­ed, the offi­cer should be com­pelled to pay one-half of the dam­ages award­ed,” he sug­gest­ed in a let­ter to The Gleaner.

Here’s the thing, in prin­ci­ple I do not dis­agree with any­thing that Bert Samuels said in his state­ments.
As a staunch sup­port­er of the rule of law, I cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly sup­port these ideas with­out equiv­o­ca­tion.
We can­not have a demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety if our laws are not applied fair­ly across the board.
What I take issue with is the mes­sen­ger Bert Samuels.

Bert Samuels is a prod­uct of the ghet­to.
He is from the oth­er side of the Cassava Piece gul­ly which is Glen Drive in Kingston 8.
Bert Samuels has rep­re­sent­ed crim­i­nals from all spec­trums of the soci­ety as is his right and duty.
What I nev­er heard, is Bert Samuels speak­ing out on the wan­ton blood­shed that those he has rep­re­sent­ed have vis­it­ed on our coun­try.
The fact that one is a crim­i­nal defense lawyer does not strip one of his respon­si­bil­i­ty to be a good cit­i­zen.
Criminal defense lawyers, are offi­cers of the courts. They have a moral respon­si­bil­i­ty to speak out against crim­i­nal con­duct.
The fact that one defends crim­i­nals should not pre­clude one from speak­ing out against crime and crim­i­nals.
Yet on these moral per­spec­tives Bert Samuels, the well-known defense lawyer has been eeri­ly silent.
When it comes to doing the right thing Bert Samuels is unable to walk and chew gum at the same time and that ren­ders his opin­ions inconsequential.

POLICE

Three offi­cers who were on tri­al in the case dubbed the death squad tri­al” (by the dirty media hous­es) were freed yes­ter­day with­out hav­ing to defend them­selves against the charges of mur­der lev­eled against them by INDECOM.
Detective Corporal Kevin Adams, District Constable Howard Brown, and Constable Carl Bucknor had the case against them tossed for want of pros­e­cu­tion by the judge.
The offi­cers were charged with the mur­der of Andrew Bisson who was killed on September 5, 2011, dur­ing a police oper­a­tion.
Why do I even both­er to men­tion this?
Well to begin with, con­trary to the Gleaner’s report­ing these offi­cers were not acquit­ted.
An acquit­tal means you face tri­al and is found not guilty.
In this case, the judge moved to end the tri­al because the pros­e­cu­tion could not meet its own pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al thresh­old.

Why is this impor­tant?
This is impor­tant because, in the very same case, for­mer cop Chucky Brown impli­cat­ed him­self to INDECOM inves­ti­ga­tors who were hell-bent on crim­i­nal­iz­ing the death of Bisson and these offi­cers were going to be made to pay one way or the oth­er.
Brown was led astray by INDECOM, not only was Brown not offered immu­ni­ty to lie to con­vict his col­leagues, he will most like­ly be spend­ing the greater part of the remain­der of his life in prison.
And for what?
To sat­is­fy the blood-lust of Terrence Williams and Hamish Campbell.
I hope these offi­cers get to the busi­ness of suing the Government for every pen­ny to which they are entitled.