‘Long live Privy Council!’
Attorney feels ‘vindicated’ as UK Law Lords quash murder convictions of Vybz Kartel, co-accused
Published:Friday | March 15, 2024 | 12:11 AMAndre Williams/Staff Reporter
One of the attorneys who represented dancehall superstar Vybz Kartel in a previous appeal of his 2014 trial yesterday declared that she felt vindicated by the ruling of the United Kingdom (UK)-based Privy Council, quashing the murder conviction of the man celebrated around the globe as ‘World Boss’.
Kartel, whose given name is Adidja Palmer, and his now former co-convicts - Shawn ‘Shawn Storm’ Campbell, Kahira Jones, and Andre ‘Mad Suss’ St John - saw the Privy Council send their case back to the local Court of Appeal for a decision on whether they should face retrial for the 2011 murder of Clive ‘Lizard’ Campbell.
The Privy Council indicated yesterday that while it had “considerable sympathy with the dilemma” faced by the trial judge in the murder trial following discovery of jury tampering attempts, allowing the tainted juror to continue in the case was fatal to the verdict.
“The board is very mindful of the serious consequences which may flow from having to discharge a jury shortly before the end of a long and complex trial. It is also very conscious of the danger of deliberate attempts to derail criminal trials by engineering situations in which it is necessary to discharge a jury,” Lord Lloyd-Jones said in delivering the judgment yesterday.
However, the Privy Council said it had to quash the conviction on several grounds, including that the direction given to the jurors by the judge on the final day of the trial was inadequate to save the situation and that the judge did not take into account the possibility of overcompensation by jurors who knew about the alleged bribe.
It added that there should have been no question of allowing the tainted juror to continue as doing so put the safety of the verdict at risk and was an infringement of the defendants’ fundamental rights to a fair hearing.
King’s Counsel Valerie Neita Robertson, who represented Palmer when he and the other three men were granted leave in March 2017 to appeal their convictions and sentence at the Jamaican Court of Appeal, yesterday reiterated her long-standing position that the Privy Council should remain Jamaica’s final appellate court.
Neita Robertson told The Gleaner that she felt extremely vindicated by the ruling.
In April 2014, Palmer was sentenced by trial judge Lennox Campbell to life in prison with the eligibility of parole after serving 35 years of his sentence.
His co-accused were also handed life sentences, with Campbell and Jones being eligible for parole after serving 25 years and St John being eligible after serving 15 years.
Three years later, the much-anticipated appeal was dismissed in the local Court of Appeal. However, their parole eligibilities were reduced by two and a half years each.
The Privy Council, about 11:10 a.m. yesterday, set aside the convictions of the men.
Neita Robertson said her position is well known: that justice has no colour, no race, no status, and no class.
“Justice is universal, so I prefer to go to a court where I can get justice. This criticism of the Privy Council because it is judges from England is neither here nor there. We want justice in Jamaica, and if we can get it from the Privy Council then that is what we would rather support. Jamaica, and I am not saying that our judges are not intelligent or as intelligent, because I think they are, however, what I am saying is that Jamaica is too small a place. We all know of each other,” Neita-Robertson told The Gleaner.
She said that in England, the Law Lords do not know Vybz Kartel and what they did was look at the matter, and they did not think the entertainer got a fair trial.
“We have been saying so from the very beginning,” Neita Robertson said. “So Jamaicans have to get wise. They have to know what to support in order to advance the quality of life that we need to secure in this country, so I support the Privy Council, and long live the Privy Council,” she said.
She agreed with Lord Lloyd-Jones on his stance that the appeals should be allowed and the convictions quashed on the ground of juror misconduct.
Lord Lloyd-Jones said the trial judge’s decision to continue with the jury pool, having not discharged them on the basis of allegations of bribery, was a “material irregularity” in the course of the trial, which made it necessary to quash the convictions.
“Oh yes, I feel extremely vindicated because that point I argued at our Court of Appeal extensively, and I knew it was absolutely wrong to have kept the jury. They should have been discharged,” Neita Robertson said.
The matter was remitted to the Court of Appeal for a decision to be made concerning retrial, and Neita Robertson said she expected the director of public prosecutions (DPP) to present arguments and defence attorneys to present their arguments and then the court would make a decision.
“If there is to be a retrial, then the DPP will set a date and put the matter before the court, and if there is a bail [application], etc, that would be examined, especially having regard to the state of [Palmer’s] health and will move forward with that,” Neita Robertson said.
The KC said there is a timeline that must be adhered to and rules that govern what the timeline should be.
“There are rules that guide us. It is not anything foreign. There are even rules about jurors and when jurors are contaminated how you deal with that. The process that you use to determine that, I don’t know how that was not done in this case.”
Bert Samuels, who represents Campbell, said his legal team, including his daughter, Bianca, filed 135 pages of arguments in the Jamaican Court of Appeal.
“The courts will make mistakes. The court will also do things which another court will review. Though intellectuals don’t always agree, it’s a disappointment to me that they didn’t allow the appeal, but it’s not a shame on our court. We have brilliant judges. It’s just that this time, they got it wrong,” Samuels told The Gleaner.
Samuels said it was the most voluminous and popular case that he has ever done in his 45-year career.
Before the verdict was handed down, he asked the media to forgive him if he was a little abrupt, citing nervousness.
“I’ll hang on because my inherited person (Bianca), she will move on because she got the brains. I just have the experience,” Samuels said, beaming with joy at the Privy Council ruling and extending the gratitude to his young protégée.
Isat Buchanan, who represented both Campbell and Palmer at the Privy Council appeal hearing, took to social media after the ruling to say that it was significant and monumental.
Buchanan said Jamaica’s national treasure, dancehall, has been been robbed 12 years of Vybz Kartel.
On the outskirts of the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre, where Palmer and Campbell are inmates, The Gleaner was told by warders that there was a frenzy as the prisoners watched and listened from their cells to the judgment of the Law Lords, banging on rails and screaming “Free Worl’ Boss!”.