Kartel and company no longer convicts

Attorney-at-law Bert Samuels, while happy that his client Shawn Campbell is “no longer a convict”, has expressed his dissatisfaction that it took the Privy Council in England to quash the murder conviction of Campbell, dancehall star Adidja Palmer – better known as Vybz Kartel, Andre St John and Kahira Jones. The case has been sent back to the Jamaican Court of Appeal to consider a retrial.

“The status of the men in custody – and Shawn Campbell in particular because he is our client – is that they are no longer convicts. The conviction has been set aside by the Privy Council and Shawn Campbell now has the right to apply for bail because he is now awaiting the decision of a court whether he should go to trial or not,” Samuels told The Gleaner.

Bert Samuels and attorney Bianca Samuels had invited the media to the offices of the General Legal Council on Harbour Street on Thursday to watch the judgment live, following the Privy Council hearing of an appeal of the four men on February 14 and 15.

The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on Thursday said that it “has concluded that the appeals should be allowed and the appellants’ convictions should be quashed on the ground of juror misconduct, and that the case should be remitted to the Court of Appeal of Jamaica to decide”.

The Privy Council detailed three grounds:

1. The direction to the jury on the final day was inadequate to save the situation. The judge simply reminded the jury that they had sworn, or affirmed that they would return verdicts in accordance with the evidence they had heard in court. The judge did not refer to the alleged bribery of which, if the allegations were true, the jurors were already aware.

2. The trial continued with the allegedly corrupt juror serving as one of its 11 members. In the board’s view, there should have been no question of allowing juror X (the tainted juror) to continue to serve on the jury. Allowing juror X to remain on the jury is fatal to the safety of the conviction which followed. It was an infringement of the appellant’s fundamental right to a fair hearing under the Jamaican Constitution.

3. The judge should have considered whether the remaining jurors might have become conscious or unconsciously prejudiced for or against one or more of the appellants, as a result of juror X’s behaviour.

HARD WORK

Samuels pointed out that the conviction being quashed was “a result of hard work”, but lamented that it had to take the Privy Council to arrive at that decision.

“The reasons for quashing the case in the Privy Council ... we argued those very grounds in the Court of Appeal in Jamaica which turned us away. Therefore, the final Court of Appeal has vindicated ... and made the efforts that we have made that we had an arguable case. We were alarmed when the Jamaican Court of Appeal did not take that jury point and it took another court to say there was breach of the constitutional rights of Shawn Storm (Shawn Campbell),” Samuels said.

He added, “We are thinking that this is an instructive judgment and it ought not to have had to go to the Privy Council. It should have been stopped by the trial judge ... or if not, it should have been stopped by the Jamaican Court of Appeal and, therefore, the men who have been convicted for 10 years and one day today the 14th of March ... they will live again for retrial consideration.”

Samuels, who reminded consistently that he was the attorney for Shawn ‘Shawn Storm’ Campbell, also made it clear that it was not a given that he would be representing Campbell in a “fresh case” which will now go before the Court of Appeal. Both he and Bianca have been representing Campbell for four years and they seemed ready for the fight.

“The Court of Appeal has to decide whether it is fair if after 12 years in prison, we have to get lawyers again for the case. With all the publicity that has been made about voice notes and all that has been circulated in the Jamaican population and whether we can find seven jurors – because the number has been reduced – to hear this matter and come to a verdict. We will be fighting in the Court of Appeal to tell the court that in all the circumstances, it will not be in the interest of justice for Shawn Campbell to be placed on a retrial,” the legal luminary stated.

Bianca Samuels added, “And to be clear, the Privy Council is not saying that there must be a retrial. The Privy Council is saying ‘Let the Jamaican Court of Appeal decide whether there needs to be a retrial’. We are grateful that the conviction has been quashed but we have a challenge ahead.”

Noting that a retrial will mean “going back to the drawing board to make sure that justice is served”, Samuels pointed out the worst-case scenario.

“Trial ... Court of Appeal ... Privy Council ... back to the Court of Appeal and then that court deciding that there should be a retrial. That doesn’t sound to me like justice being delivered to the appellants in this matter,” Samuels said.

He explained that the lawyers will now be knocking on the door seeking bail for Vybz Kartel, Campbell, St John and Jones. They have been in prison since 2011 for the murder of Clive ‘Lizard’ Williams, whose body was never found.

yasmine.peru@gleanerjm.com