ONE DON D-DAY
Blackman, others to know fate of gang case when judge rules Monday
Published:Friday | June 17, 2022 | 12:10 AMTanesha Mundle/Staff Reporter
Chief Justice Bryan Sykes is to rule Monday on the no-case submissions made for 24 of the 28 remaining alleged gangsters in the Clansman-One Don Gang trial, including reputed leader Andre 'Blackman' Bryan.
While the majority of defence lawyers for the batch had sought to have the entire case thrown out, Bryan's lead attorney, Lloyd McFarlane, had only challenged one of the 13 remaining counts against his client. He was indicted on 17 counts, but the prosecution had abandoned six, including four that involved him.
The high-profile case commenced last September with 33 defendants, including one woman.
Four defendants – Damaine Elliston, Rushane Williams, Rivaldo Hylton, and Owen Ormsby – were freed last month for lack of evidence, while a fifth, Dwayne Salmon, walked shortly after on similar grounds.
Justice Sykes adjourned the matter Thursday but not before again raising concerns about the prosecution's failure to present affirmative evidence.
In relation to one of the murders, the judge questioned if he should accept statements on the basis of faith after no records had been submitted in relation to the crime scene. He also criticised the police's outdated approach to investigation.
The scene was in relation to the August 2015 murder of Damaine 'Doolie' Forrester on Chancery Street in St Andrew.
The officer who had processed that scene had testified that she had taken photographs but that the compact disc on which they were stored had disappeared. Further, the server on which they were stored had reportedly developed problems and crashed, resulting in the photographs being lost.
“Can't be that you have a homicide in the 21st century and you have no record,” the judge said, indicating similar circumstances of no records tied to another murder in the trial.
“If the police officers recover these things, they don't have to record it somewhere. Contemporaneous records, they don't have to be stored somewhere, they don't have exhibit registers. So even if you say the images of the photographs are lost, computer crash, there is not even a record from the lab to say I received these items,” he said.
“So it doesn't just end with 'Oh, I can't find the photographs.'”
The judge compared what had transpired in that matter to the double murder-arson case in the trial where spent casings were recovered and submitted according to procedure.
But the prosecutor indicated that the two incidents were the only ones that had evidence about the chain of custody out of the 10 shooting and murder incidents cited in the trial.
He also noted that the spent casings that were recovered from the double murder-arson in New Nursery, St Catherine – where a couple, Jermaine Bryan and Cedella Walder, were shot and killed and their premises set ablaze on September 9, 2017 – had matched a firearm that was allegedly taken from defendant Tareek James eight days after the deaths.
Further, he recalled that the court had heard testimony that Bryan had taken the gun from James and had shot the male victim during the murder-arson.
However, in relation to the judge's concern regarding the data, the prosecutor told the court, “The evidence is what it is.”
On Wednesday, Justice Sykes advised the Crown to consider that no records had been presented to the court with regard to the chain of custody for items taken from different crime scenes.
He also raised concerns about the absence of evidence detailing how information from the telecommunications companies that was used to provide the call and cell site data was captured and transmitted to the database in which it was stored.
Bryan and 32 others were initially charged on a 25-count indictment for being part of a criminal organisation.