WHO IS SURPRISED BY THIS?

Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey hear­ing the Kern Spencer crim­i­nal case, ruled that a cru­cial piece of evi­dence would not be admit­ted into evidence.A thumb dri­ve tak­en from an apart­ment the for­mer junior min­is­ter once occu­pied in 2008 would not be admit­ted into evi­dence. The Jamaica Daily Gleaner report­ed that the rul­ing came after defense attor­neys K.D. Knight and Deborah Martin object­ed as police cyber-crimes expert Sergeant Patrick Linton was about to give details about the con­tents of the thumb dri­ve. My under­stand­ing of crim­i­nal court cas­es tells me the very idea that the defense does­n’t want the thumb-dri­ve intro­duced into evi­dence is because of the poten­cy of what’s on it. I am not fault­ing the defense for wag­ing a spir­it­ed fight on their clien­t’s behalf. What I am against is the real­i­ty that the tri­al judges is seen as aligned with the defense. Even the per­cep­tion of such col­lu­sion is tox­ic and cor­ro­sive to the process.

It is dif­fi­cult enough to suc­cess­ful­ly pros­e­cute a crim­i­nal offend­er. He/​she has no bur­den to say any­thing, it is up to the pros­e­cu­tion to prove its case. It is a steep hill to climb get­ing over “beyond a rea­son­able doubt” in crim­i­nal cas­es. It is expo­nen­tial­ly more dif­fi­cult to bring a crim­i­nal case against any­one con­nect­ed in Jamaica, much less to get that case to stick. The last thing the process of jus­tice needs is a judge who have demon­stra­bly aligned her­self square­ly on the side of the accused through words and deeds. It is impor­tant to remem­ber that Justice must not only be done but it must seem to be done. I am not a Lawyer, yet I remind my legal­ly trained friends that per­cep­tion is important.

The defense in this case can­not catch a break from this Magistrate Judith Pusey. First she want­ed the Prosecutor to tes­ti­fy on the stand about what if any­thing she offered a wit­ness to get him to tes­ti­fy against the accused Kern Spencer. This would have been a ground break­ing and unprece­dent­ed move had the pros­e­cu­tor acqui­esced. The DPP filed motion in the high court Appealing to the Magistrate’s order. The Court of Appeals agreed with the DPP. That was not enough the Magistrate fought back appeal­ing the deci­sion against her rul­ing and was smacked down by the high­est court in a unan­i­mous decision.

Sounds like some­thing you would expect com­ing from defense coun­sel on behalf of his/​her client right? That was the pros­e­cu­tor bat­tling the tri­al judge, who should be impar­tial , while the defense sits around sali­vat­ing at the spec­ta­cle. Many peo­ple do not see any­thing wrong with this non­sense. Sometimes their views are influ­enced by pol­i­tics. In oth­er cas­es they are influ­enced by loy­al­ty to the legal pro­fes­sion. Clearly this case is yet anoth­er which puts the Jamaican jus­tice square­ly on trial.