Where was the jury in the coastguard trial?

Oct 02, 2013 Letters

Dear Editor,
‘I am the judge, jury and the sentencing officer in this voir dire (trial within a trial) so I have the final say,’ were the words used by a trial judge who presided over the recent High Court Case involving the three former Guyana Defense Force Coast Guards who were sentenced to be hanged earlier this year.
Trial by jury is a legal concept in which a jury either makes a decision or makes findings of fact, which are then applied by a judge. Clearly, this did not occur during the coast guards trial.
I attended the proceedings from day one; the trial lasted 32 days. This was mainly because the Suddie High Court traditionally only sits three days week. From the outset of the trial the defense team Attorneys-at-law Peter Hugh and Latchmie Rahamat had the stack against them.
But what got me more concerned over whether the jury had any role to play in case was the manner of which the trial judge summarized the case. The judge told the jury that the law must be applied to the case and circumstantial evidence is important to note.
The judge spent just under five hours presenting the prosecution’s case, contrary to the fifty-five minutes spent in presenting the main points posited by the defense team and the three accused in their unsworn statements.
But what was equally shocking is that after the more than six hours of the judges’ summary, the jury returned with their verdicts in less than half an hour of deliberations. With this, a casual observer like me is left to draw several inferences from the speedy unanimous verdict. Was the jury properly instructed? Did the trail judge explain the law to the jury? Did he draw correlations between the law and the fact? What weight did the trial judge instruct the jury to place on the credibility of the witnesses statements given under cross-examination?
As an attorney in training, I am somewhat confused over the exact role of the jury in this particular trial. I was told by a now retired judge that while a judge is in charge of his/her court room he/she must not manage the courtroom as if to intimidate the jury or anyone that is before them.
The families of the convicted men have appealed the conviction on the grounds that the trial was not a fair trial and that the judge failed to direct the jury on the law and also on several critical factors posited by the defense team.
I recalled the pathologist saying that he cannot say decisively when the young man died. He accepted the defence lawyer suggestion that it was possible that he died on November 21, 2009
The lawyer said that the burden was on the prosecutor to prove that he died for certain on the 20th November 2009, while the doctor said it is possible he could have died on November 21, which means that there was an equal rational inference of innocence that could be drawn and ought to have been pointed out to the jury. This was not done by the trial judge. This of course is a brilliant ground for an appeal.
Because if it’s possible he died on November 21 when the three accused persons were already in police custody, then it would mean logically that they didn’t kill him. This, according to the defence lawyer, the jury ought to have been instructed by the Trial Judge to return a verdict of not guilty.
While the appeal process is ensuing, a team of high profile lawyers are planning to challenge the legality of the death sentence in Guyana. According to a senior counsel, who has shown an avid interest in the sentencing to death of the accused by hanging by Judge Franklyn Holder, in the last criminal assizes, the death penalty issue should be settled once and for all.
Frank DaSilva
Grad Student (University of East Anglia)

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Where was the jury in the coastguard trial?

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