The judgment in the Vybz Kartel appeal case will be handed down on March 14, the Privy Council has announced.
The court proceedings will be live-streamed at 4:00 PM (GMT), and 11:00 AM (Jamaican time).
The dancehall artiste and three co-accused: Shawn Campbell, or Shaw Storm; Kahira Jones; and Andre St John appealed their 2014 life sentences last month.
The appellants were convicted of the murder of Clive “Lizard” Williams. Arguments were heard in the United Kingdom-based Privy Council on February 14 and 15.
The issue in the appeal is whether their convictions are safe in light of the following grounds of challenge:
- Should the trial judge have excluded the telecommunications evidence relied on by the prosecution?
- How should the judge have handled the allegations that there were attempts to bribe members of the jury during the trial? Should the jury have been discharged?
- Was the judge wrong to invite the jury to reach a verdict late in the day, given the special circumstances of the case?
July tampering the main focus of judges
On both days of the appeal hearing, British law lords were focused on the issue of jury tampering. Both sides argued whether Livingston Caine, the juror convicted of attempting to sway the jury foreman with a $500,000 bribe to secure a not-guilty verdict, should have been removed from the panel.
Had Caine been dismissed, it would have necessitated a restart of the trial, a prospect the prosecution, represented by King’s Counsel Peter Knox, deemed challenging given the trial’s already lengthy duration.
Knox contended that there was minimal risk of bias influencing the verdict, citing overwhelming evidence against the appellants. He highlighted various pieces of evidence, including incriminating audio recordings of Vybz Kartel and text messages from the deceased, and reported damage to Palmer’s residence, where the murder allegedly occurred.
In the event of convictions being overturned, the prosecution expressed its desire for a retrial, emphasizing the importance of considering the decisions made by the Jamaican Court of Appeal, which is most familiar with the Jamaican legal system.
Fair trial not possible, says Kartel’s lawyers
But King’s Counsel Hugh Southey, representing the appellants, countered the notion of a retrial, asserting that the passage of time and the high-profile nature of the case have made a fair trial unfeasible.
“Those difficulties have not diminished, they have become greater because of passage of time. This is something that is now high profile. In our submission, that submission supports our argument that there is no point remitting this … because a fair trial is now very difficult, impossible, we would submit,” Southey said.
Isat Buchanan, another attorney for the Vybz Kartel, emphasized their pursuit to overturn the men’s convictions. “There’s no remedy, no consideration for a retrial or a second chance,” he said.
