Whether We Like It Or Not, The Justice System Worked Perfectly: For Whom?

From time to time you have seen me rail against what passes for a justice system . It has become one of the most criminally complicit systems to operate anywhere in the western hemisphere. The tragedy facing the average Jamaican is that they had gone all in on their support for the system placing immense trust in the judges more so . Unfortunately this has been a bad investment and the people are now beginning to wake up to the fact that this system is radically broken and only serves the interest of the wealthy and well connected.

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The sys­tem which exists absolute­ly work for the crim­i­nal under­world. It works for crim­i­nal defense lawyers. It works for the polit­i­cal class which sits atop the gar­ri­son cul­ture and of course the periph­er­al indus­tries which has sprung up around the death indus­try. That was borne out on Wednesday in an Observer arti­cle writ­ten by Attorney at law Linton P Gordon. Gordon’s arti­cle though cor­rect on the law revealed an incred­i­ble tone-deaf­ness of what peo­ple are com­plain­ing about that could only be made pos­si­ble by the insu­lar space he and oth­ers like him occu­py despite the rag­ing debate.
In an arti­cle ref­er­enc­ing the recent acquit­tal of Patrick Powell of the charge of mur­der Gordon wrote: Whether we like it or not, the jus­tice sys­tem worked perfectly.

I have con­sis­tent­ly spo­ken to the rapa­cious nature of crim­i­nal defense lawyers. In Jamaica it is even more evi­dent con­sid­er­ing the close asso­ci­a­tions between dan­ger­ous crim­i­nals and crim­i­nal defense lawyers. It must nev­er be for­got­ten that lawyers, even crim­i­nal defense lawyers are offi­cers of the courts.
In most cas­es the lines between lawyers and their clients are indiscernible.
In his arti­cle Gordon states what most Jamaicans who ever set foot in an ele­men­tary school already knew.

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Whether we like it or not, the jus­tice sys­tem worked perfectly.
For whom?

Following on the collapse of the case, and the inevitable verdict of acquittal in favour of the accused Patrick Powell, there have been widespread discussions and emotional outbursts as to how the case came to an end. Several of the discussions lack an understanding and appreciation of the process by which a person is tried in our courts. They also lack an understanding of the respective roles of the defence and the prosecution in a trial.

In our system of law, it is the duty of the Crown, ie the prosecutor, to prove the case brought beyond a reasonable doubt. That is to say, a judge or jury should only convict an accused person if they are sure beyond a reasonable doubt that the person is guilty as charged. To reach this stage of a guilty verdict the prosecution must adduce credible evidence, so that having heard the total case of the prosecution, the jury will be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Powell, in this case, is guilty. The prosecution therefore faced an insurmountable barrier to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt when the main witness stated that he could not identify the person who did the shooting.

Whether we like it or not, given that the prosecution was relying on this witness primarily, when the witness gave evidence of not being able to identify Powell as the shooter, the prosecution’s case was all but destroyed. The prosecution, from what is learnt, had no other evidence, forensic or otherwise, to place the then accused at the scene of the shooting, nor to identify him as the person who did the shooting. This is the harsh reality of what happened to this case and we must accept that the judge and prosecutor did what was professionally required of them. Indeed, the judge had no choice but to direct the jury to return a verdict of not guilty after the prosecution offered no further evidence, given that the evidence on record so far was not sufficient to convict the accused. We must also remember that an accused has no duty to prove his innocence. Powell therefore could not have been called upon to prove that he was not present at the scene of the shooting or that he was not the one who did the shooting. An accused person is entitled to remain silent from beginning until the end as there is no duty on him to prove his innocence.

Given what is said so far, it is wrong for people to seek to condemn the justice system as being defective. The justice system worked perfectly and properly in the X6 case. If anything went wrong, it was not with the justice system, but with the investigation of the case and evidence that was available. The main witness denied giving or signing a statement that was put to him as his statement. As in several cases that come before the court, we will never know for sure whether the denial is a truthful denial or if it’s a denial that is not factual. At the end of the day, we should respect the workings of our justice system and avoid emotional outbursts when results are rendered with which we are not happy. It is better for a thousand guilty individuals to escape conviction than for an innocent man to be convicted and punished based on emotions rather than facts and evidence.

Ours is a well-established, tested and reliable system by which we establish guilt in our courts. The system works fairly well in this country. If we replace it with subjective beliefs and emotionalism we will be submitting to the tyranny of those “in the know”, and several of us not “in the know” will find that our rights will be abrogated and we will be accused, convicted and punished by those “in the know” and not by a system of justice that we have now which is grounded in law. Our justice system worked properly and rendered the correct verdict based on the evidence available in the X6 case. It is therefore wrong to direct dissatisfaction with the verdict at our justice system.

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Linton Gordon did not miss the let­ter of what is being borne out in the pain and dis­gust of the peo­ple, he got that . He recit­ed the let­ter of the law.
What he missed is the spir­it of the pain. !!!~!
There is the let­ter of the law , and then there is the spir­it of the law. Linton Gordon is a lawyer he nailed the let­ter down. What he missed is the spir­it of the law , the rea­son why the laws were passed in the first place.
The laws are made for the peo­ple , peo­ple are not made for the laws . The peo­ple have every right to com­plain , and mil­i­tate against the laws if their inter­est are not being served.
This small fact seemed to have elud­ed Gordon.
What I find par­tic­u­lar­ly galling is this nar­ra­tive that the flawed jus­tice sys­tem is above being crit­i­cized. I heard that very same argu­ment dur­ing the X6 tri­al , before the case was tossed of course.
The tri­al judge seemed to believe that there is some­thing sac­ri­le­gious about crit­i­ciz­ing the sys­tem . This is the very same argu­ment being prof­fered by Linton Gordon.
What is clear is that the tri­al judges and their cohorts with­in the crim­i­nal defense space are yet to receive the memo that the peo­ple are onto them and their schemes.

It is ridicu­lous to sit in ivory tow­ers and speak in grandiose terms about a jus­tice sys­tem which has turned out to be a shit-stem.
Reciting the let­ter of the law when peo­ple are cry­ing out that the very same laws are not work­ing does noth­ing to ame­lio­rate the con­cerns and pain of the people.
We know what the laws are , we are say­ing that the sys­tem as it exist is not working.
Ten times ten is equal to a hun­dred , yet if we arrived at the tens incor­rect­ly or through less than legit­i­mate means , it mat­ters not that the sum total is cor­rect the results will always be ques­tion­able, always be flawed.

Arguing that the sys­tem worked per­fect­ly is a poke in the eye of the fam­i­ly of Khajeel Maias. It is bla­tant dis­re­spect to the dead 17-year-old vic­tim and all of the oth­er Jamaicans who have been vic­tim­ized by the jus­tice sys­tem after being vic­tim­ized by crime.
The sys­tem itself has been ren­dered irrel­e­vant as is evi­denced by the crime statistics.
It has been ren­dered bro­ken by the Kern Spencer light bulb tri­al in which a par­ti­san polit­i­cal res­i­dent mag­is­trate moved every foun­da­tion pil­lar to free a politi­cian accused of a crime in a clear cut case in which he should have been impris­oned. Lets stop with the cha­rade that there is a jus­tice sys­tem there isn’t, where else in the west­ern hemi­sphere could a res­i­dent mag­is­trate over rule the law to set a crim­i­nal sus­pect free with­out a jury even hav­ing heard the case against him?
It has been ren­dered bro­ken in the fact that no politi­cian has ever been impris­oned despite the bil­lions and bil­lions of dol­lars of theft com­mit­ted by mem­bers of the past administration.

It has been proven bro­ken by the fail­ure of the sys­tem to pros­e­cute polit­i­cal thugs. Those in the gar­risons as well as those in the parliament.
It is a bro­ken sys­tem which has politi­cians who are not allowed to trav­el to the United States sit­ting in the parliament.
There is so much to be said about the bro­ken down decrepit sys­tem which keeps mur­der cas­es in the sys­tem until wit­ness­es are frus­trat­ed, dead , or just does­n’t care anymore.
The jus­tice sys­tem is a bro­ken sys­tem, which serves the inter­est of crim­i­nals and their defense attor­neys it serves the inter­est of cer­tain judges out­side what many Jamaicans are pre­pared to believe.

So of course the sys­tem worked per­fect­ly as far as Linton Gordon and oth­ers are con­cerned . Their inter­ests are guar­an­teed under this cha­rade which pass­es for a crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, it caters to the needs of depraved mur­der­ers and those who work for them are or oth­er­wise asso­ci­at­ed with them.
Maybe it’s time this lawyer begin by shed­ding the clown suit he is wear­ing and maybe , just maybe, he will begin to under­stand what the man on the street sees.
Word of warning,this igno­ble sys­tem is even­tu­al­ly going to come crash­ing down soon­er or later.