Bahamas: Criminal justice in crisis

IN A few weeks time the Prime Minister will give his state of the nation message, which will deal with many subjects of importance. Crime will obviously feature high on his agenda.

This will be the deciding year -- either the criminals will get control or the community, the police and the judiciary will unite to return law and order to the nation.

Today the criminal seems to have the upper hand. In other words he is literally getting away with murder.

The judge who returns a person to the streets on remand is not doing that person a favour. Some would have been safer behind bars for whatever length of time they would have had to await trial. In the interim several of them have been killed.

But let's look at it from the point of view of the accused. Recently we were told by one -- a tinge of sarcastic bitterness in his voice -- "Man I just working for my lawyer!"

Translated that comment meant that he fully realised that with a criminal record he had no hope of finding a job once he was returned to the streets on remand. The reality of life was that he had to eat, secure lodging and in many cases try to support a family. Unable to work, he had to continue a life of crime, and the crime had to be lucrative enough to provide lawyer's fees against the day he was caught and had to again plead "not guilty" before the bar of justice. His future depended upon that lawyer using his debating skills and the knowledge of the law to keep him out of prison. And so for him -- and the community -- the cycle of crime continues.

There is then the even more frightening phenomenon of the intimidation of witnesses. Even from behind their prison bars witnesses are being intimidated by certain accused persons. Witnesses have often recanted through fear.

A person who has nothing to lose, but everything to gain by using his wits will go to criminal lengths to secure his freedom. And some of these men, sitting in a jail cell, are going to those criminal lengths to intimidate a community.

We have heard of a case of an accused, in jail, using a cell phone to contact a leading witness in his case to say what would happen to him if he testified. Imagine in prison with a cell phone. Imagine what would happen to trials if witnesses are silenced through fear. No one would go to prison and justice would have to take its course on the streets.

For prisoners to have cells phones in prison -- and this has been reported on many occasions in the past -- there has to be a severe breach of security at the prison. The police should do a thorough investigation and get to the bottom of this. From what we understand, this particular prisoner is not the only one who is managing his affairs from a prison cell with the aid of a cell phone.

There was another instance, which we are told took place not too long ago during a hearing in the Nassau Street magistrate's court. The accused is said to have lifted his hand showing his palm to the witness in the box. The number 186 was written on the palm.

Later the witness asked the significance of 186. The reply was that in "street language" 186 meant that the accused planned to instruct his "boys" to shoot up the witness and all his family in a "drive by."

And then there are the lawyers. Much of the case backlog is caused by lawyers, either because they are not prepared, have too many cases going on at the same time and need postponements, or are just using delaying tactics in hopes that the case will fall off the court calendar for want of many things, not the least among them the absence of witnesses. The court system not only needs an overhaul, but on the part of lawyers a return to discipline, efficiency and respect for the court's time.

As for some of the judges -- that's another story. Sometimes we wonder if they live on the same planet and are aware of what they are doing to the community when they return, not once, but twice and in a few cases three times, murder accused to the community to await trial. There have been occasions when these accused have killed each other and saved the court time, but there also have been occasions when an innocent bystander has been caught in the cross fire.

Last year Dame Joan Sawyer, Appeals Court judge, ruled that in bail decisions if a judge has to warn the bail applicant not to interfere with witnesses, then that applicant should not be granted bail.

We understand that one of that august body retorted that if that were the case then he would not give such warnings in the future for fear of the Attorney General's office applying to revoke the bail.

These are the problems that the Prime Minister and parliamentarians have to face, because legislation is obviously needed to deal with some of them.

January 04, 2010

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