Defence frustrated with length of Keith Clarke trial

Expressing concerns over the protracted trial, defence lawyers in the Keith Clarke murder case on Thursday urged Justice Dale Palmer to use his authority to put an end to the frequent adjournments.

“I note by way of Rule 36 of the Plea and Case Management rules that were promulgated on the 30th of May 2020 that your Lordship has the power to limit any trial, whether it be by judge alone or jury. In those circumstance, I am inviting the court to so act,” King’s Counsel Peter Champagnie said.

Furthermore, the senior counsel said, “We are concerned that witnesses not appearing originally on the indictment in relation to this matter are now being added and we have this protracted, everlasting trial.”

Champagnie raised the issue after the prosecution was granted another delay in the trial, which started on May 4.

Supporting his colleague, Linton Gordon told the judge: “I think it is in your jurisdiction as my learned friend has said. I think you should abide by your word and decision that you would not allow any more adjournments. The case should be proceeded with. The Crown has been given enough time to present the evidence and to call their witnesses. We just have to bring a conclusion to this.”

Even though the matter was case-managed for almost a year, Gordon submitted that the defence was still being served statements and that the late witnesses who were now being called were always available to the Crown.

“ ... If each time we are being given a two-day notice with another witness, it is as though we are in a battle in which ambush is being used against us, sudden change of tactics, and it’s as though we are caught up in a situation [that] we, as children, used to called ‘pushy-shubby’. We don’t know what coming next, what going next, and where we are going,” he said.

Attorney-at-law John Mark Reid, for his part, complained about the continuous recalling of witnesses and a failure by the prosecution to give the defence adequate notice.

“It is tiresome and very unfair. We have to remember that we on this side and the jury themselves have a private life, and this trial continues to infringe on that, and it’s unfair to the accused men, the defence, and the jury,” he said.

Responding to the defence, Senior Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Jeremy Taylor said that the prosecution was being accused of behaving unethically and unfairly without evidence. He rubbished the defence’s claim of ambush.

While noting that the issues were raised the day before, Taylor accused the defence of rehashing the issue before the jury in an attempt “to present the Crown in a bad light, score points, and curry favour”.

Pointing to the defence’s request and reference to the plea and case management rules, Taylor said: “I can only think that they want to stop the Crown from presenting its case. My Lord, if that rule exists, you must find that the circumstances are so egregious as to make the trial unfair or that it is an abuse of the process of the court.”

However, he said no such evidence had been presented to the court that would allow the judge to use the rule in this case.

Taylor then indicated that the witness that the Crown is waiting on is a lawyer who is working abroad in a trial and will return on Tuesday. Additionally, he said because of the time difference, special measures could not be used.

However, in conceding that the Crown has called witnesses who were not originally on the indictment, he said: “ ... As the trial goes and as we on this side evaluate the trial, we evaluate the evidential needs. We have decided that we are not going to be stuck and then don’t present when we see something that can be cured, and I think there is authority which allows the court to do that.

“We have a duty in the interest of justice to present our best case, and that is what we are doing, granted, without fear or favour to the defence, but not in an unfair manner,” Taylor added.

After listening to the submissions, Justice Palmer told the jury that there was merit in the argument of both parties but that he would address them at a later date.

At the same time, he said the Crown’s application for another adjournment was undesirable but unavoidable.

Meanwhile, Gordon, earlier, completed his cross-examination of Taneish Wisdom, director of evaluation of standards at the Independent Commission of Investigations. She acknowledged that she gave four statements in the trial and that three of them were after the trial started and that she did so at the request of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Lance Corporals Greg Tingling and Odel Buckley and Private Arnold Henry are on trial for Clarke’s murder.

The 64-year-old accountant was shot 25 times inside his master bedroom at his Kirkland Close, St Andrew, home on May 27, 2010, during a police-military operation to apprehend then-fugitive drug lord Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke.

The trial will resume next week Wednesday.

tanesha.mundle@gleanerjm.com