Attorney confident Privy Council will overturn murder convictions of Vybz Kartel, co-accused

 

The Judicial Committee of the UK-based Privy Council on Wednesday began hearing the long-awaited appeal of entertainer Adijah 'Vybz Kartel' Palmer and three other convicts sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Clive 'Lizard' Williams.

 

The other defendants are Shawn 'Shawn Storm' Campbell, Kahira Jones, and Andre 'Mad Suss' St. John.

 

All four were convicted on March 13, 2014 for the murder of Williams.

 

The five law lords heard submissions from King's Counsel Hugh Southey, who is representing Jones and St. John.

 

Senior attorney Bert Samuels, who is also representing Kahira Jones, told Radio Jamaica News that the men have a strong case for appeal and he believes the Privy Council will overturn the convictions.

 

According to Mr. Samuels, the trial judge should have aborted the trial and ordered a new trial when it was discovered that one of the jurors attempted to contaminate the jury pool by offering them a bribe.

 

The juror, Livingston Cain, was later tried and sentenced to nine months in prison.

 

Mr. Samuels argued that this is a major ground in the appeal. 

 

"The judge was in a dilemma. He used, in my view, expediency - that is not wanting to stop the trial because he couldn't work with ten jurors only. And therefore, when the 11 were together and one was alleged to have been trying to bribe the others, he chose to continue with what we call the bad apple, which the Court now I think is looking at whether that infected the others or whether there was a fair trial by an independent and impartial tribunal," he pointed out.  

 

Mr. Samuels believes this particular ground will lead to an overturning of the convictions. 

 

"That's the stronger of the two grounds. And I think it's getting some leverage before the judges in the Privy Council. You know, if you look at their comments and their engagements with counsel, I think that they are fairly settled in their minds, and I may be presumptuous or optimistic, that this is going to be a problem for the conviction," said the attorney.