So Much For Justice Is Blind..

One of the things I write about con­stant­ly is the lax nature of Jamaica’s judges deci­sions as it relates to bail and sen­tenc­ing. As a for­mer law enforce­ment offi­cer I wit­nessed it first­hand, the total dis­re­gard for the dif­fi­cul­ty of remov­ing vicious crim­i­nals from the streets based on a mul­ti­plic­i­ty of fac­tors to include ter­rain, some­times entire com­mu­ni­ties col­lab­o­rat­ing with the accused and lack of resources .
Yet Jamaica’s crim­i­nal lov­ing judges sum­mar­i­ly turn them loose as soon as they are brought before the courts.
It’s as if those on the bench have a vendet­ta against law enforce­ment and they use the bail act to get back at the police.
Unfortunately the con­se­quence to the pub­lic is extreme­ly costly.
One of the argu­ments they use in push­ing back against police crit­i­cisms is that bail was not intend­ed to be used as punishment.
Of course not! Bail was nev­er intend­ed to pun­ish an accused but cer­tain oth­er points have to be considered .
Not arbi­trar­i­ly grant­i­ng Bail, par­tic­u­lar­ly to vio­lent offend­ers is one way “the peo­ple” guar­an­tee that accused per­sons are made to account for the crimes they are charged with committing.
Additionally what the crim­i­nal lov­ing judges will not speak to, is the fact that the Bail Act also makes pro­vi­sions for seri­ous offend­ers to remain in cus­tody based on cer­tain criterias ‚.
Those cri­te­rias include..
(1) The like­li­hood of flight(absconding).
(2) The offend­er inter­fer­ing with the Investigation.
(3) The offend­er harm­ing witnesses.
(4) The like­li­hood the accused will reoffend.
Well guess what, a large per­cent­age of them actu­al­ly do reoffend.

If these cri­te­rias are tak­en into account when the ques­tion of bail is con­sid­ered for vio­lent offend­ers the like­li­hood of vio­lent offend­ers return­ing to the streets pre­tri­al would be vast­ly reduced and many poten­tial complainants/​witnesses would still be alive.
In many Nations if one is accused of mur­der or inflict­ing seri­ous bod­i­ly harm to anoth­er human being he or she has no expec­ta­tion of bail pretrial.
Not so in Jamaica.….
In some cas­es mur­der­ers are grant­ed bail after being arrest­ed and charged for murder/​s and are sum­mar­i­ly giv­en bail upon which they go out and elim­i­nate witnesses/​complainants.
In one well doc­u­ment­ed case one par­tic­u­lar defen­dant had five sep­a­rate unre­solved mur­der arrests. He was giv­en bail each time he was arrest­ed. He then went out and killed each time he was released on bail then sim­ply left the country.
Not only did he kill wit­ness­es he abscond­ed the jurisdiction.
Despite the gap­ing hole in the Bail Act the par­lia­ment has done noth­ing to ensure that if one is charged with mur­der or oth­er seri­ous felonies and the complainant/​wit­ness­es are killed the case con­tin­ues regardless.
TIVOLI ENQUIRY OFFERS IDEA HOW A CARIBBEAN COURT OF JUSTICE WOULD OPERATE..

I am tired of hear­ing about inno­cent until proven guilty.
We are all con­ver­sant and pro­tec­tive of the pre­sump­tion of inno­cence but it can­not be so heav­i­ly slant­ed to one side that we lose sight of the heinous crimes being com­mit­ted by peo­ple who should be in custody.
It is impor­tant that peo­ple who com­mit crimes are made to answer for their actions. How can we expect peo­ple to be deterred from com­mit­ting crimes when we make it so easy for them to walk away with­out con­se­quence in Jamaica?
On the oth­er hand on the rare occa­sion that the well con­nect­ed are vic­tims of crime every stop is pulled out , every stone over­turned to bring those respon­si­ble to justice.
Too many Jamaicans have accept­ed the con­game that there is one sys­tem of jus­tice in our coun­try or that the sys­tem is insu­lat­ed from the ten­ta­cles of corruption.
It is a lie which becomes clear when peo­ple the sys­tem val­ue become victims.

Manchester res­i­dents Milton Green and Andy Weir were on Thursday sen­tenced in the Manchester Circuit Court for the mur­der of for­mer People’s National Party Member of Parliament Dr Neil McGill. Green is expect­ed to serve 30 years before being eli­gi­ble for parole, while Weir is expect­ed to serve 20 years. McGill, on a vis­it to the parish, was report­ed­ly found in his vehi­cle with gun­shot wounds in the com­mu­ni­ty of Hillside in August 2010. He was the for­mer Member of Parliament for St Mary Western from 2002 – 2007. He was also a jus­tice of the peace, a retired Jamaica Defence Force Reserve sol­dier and busi­ness­man.Killers of PNP politi­cian sentenced

Where are these kinds of sen­tences for the 1600 plus Jamaicans killed each year who are not mem­bers of the PNP or have “Dr” behind their names?
So much for the ‘jus­tice is blind bullshit”.