Attorney Howard Hamilton passes

Howard Hamilton QC passed away late Friday evening of natural causes, family members told The Gleaner. He was 85.

Described as one of the most brilliant defence attorneys Jamaica has ever produced, Hamilton began his legal career in the chambers of the late Ian Ramsay QC and rose to become a formidable advocate.

“There was nobody I know who could make a plea in mitigation like Howard. He was brilliant,” prominent attorney Walter Scott QC told The Gleaner, expressing condolences to Hamilton’s family.

Hamilton was educated at St Aloysius Primary, Jamaica College and Lincoln’s Inn.

He was called to the Bar in November 1959 and admitted to the Inner Bar (QC) in 1984. He was senior parliamentary ombudsman and ombudsman for political matters from November 1998 to April 2000, and became Public Defender in April 2000.

He practiced law in Jamaica, Bermuda, Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Grenada, St Kitts, and Turks and Caicos.

Born in Kingston on June 9, 1936, he was the son of the late Eduardo Hamilton and Gertrude Isabel Dann-Hamilton. He had three sons and three daughters with his first wife, Beverly Ann Harrison.