Questionable Conduct: The Jamaican Political Reality

The Resident Magistrate Court is not a court of record i.e. there is no court stenographer recording verbatim the proceedings of the trial. In case of an appeal, reliance is placed on the notes compiled by the sitting Resident Magistrate. Not having access to the RM's notes, resort has to be made by that recorded by one or both parties. Below is the "transcribed verbatim by a member of the prosecution's team". We have no way of attesting to the veracity of such ; and its posting is primarily to complete the picture--having published both No Case Submissions and the Crown's Response. R v Kern Spencer and Coleen Wright Ruling of   on Application for Permanent Stay of Proceedings and No Case Submission Her Honour Ms. Judith Pusey states: “No case submission was made by the defence and an application for the stay of the proceedings on the basis of delay and prosecutorial misconduct. The credibility of Rodney Chin was put in issue. In this case th...

o Case To Answer On Monday, March 24, 2014, Senior Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey upheld the No Case Submissions (NCS) made by Deborah Martin, Attorney-at-Law (on behalf of Kern Spencer) and Attorney-at-Law K.D. Knight, Q.C. (on behalf of Coleen Wright). She ruled that both had no case to answer and were therefore free to go. The Prosecution was led by the Director of Public Prosecution, Paula Llewellyn Q.C.. The learned DPP openly disagreed with the decision that a prima facie case was not made out. Indeed on every available opportunity she has vigorously exclaimed (repeating bits of the Reply) that there was a "mountain of evidence"  and that the Senior RM was wrong in law as there was no doubt that there was a case to answer. This has ignited a conflagration of public perceptions about the administration of justice in Jamaica. For the mass public something seems fundamentally wrong with the system, given the length of time, the postponement of other cases,...