A deep-seated fear of being slapped with the dreaded label ‘informer’, is keeping many Jamaicans from stepping forward as witnesses to a crime and severely hurting the administration of justice, officials say.

That fear is now being seen as responsible for a significant lack of response to requests for character witnesses on behalf of the death row convicts who have to be re-sentenced following the United Kingdom-based Privy Council’s ruling in the Lambert Watson case that capital punishment cannot be applied as a mandatory sentence.

“Fifty per cent of potential character witnesses fear coming to court even to say something good,” Wayne Denny, attorney-at-law and Privy Council legal officer at the Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights (IJCHR), told the Sunday Observer.

Following the ruling, 45 cases were identified for re-sentencing, including seven convicts whose sentences were already commuted after the 1993 Pratt and Morgan ruling.

That ruling outlawed the death penalty for convicts sitting on death row for five or more years, saying it was cruel and inhuman punishment. Denny said that as many as 50 per cent of the families of the convicted men did nothing to help find character witnesses on their behalf.

“The convicted men themselves point us to family members who could assist in finding these potential character witnesses. When we found the family members, what we found was not a refusal to find character witnesses, but a disinterest in finding anyone,” Denny disclosed.

In other instances where individuals were located, he said they made it clear they had no intention of going to the courts.

“The fear of being labelled informer. Even to say something good about a person was enough to drive them away,” said Denny. “There are cases among these to be re-sentenced where the convicted man is sacrificing himself to protect his family from reprisals from the real killers and his cronies.”

“To say I am innocent, and to name the killer or killers is seen as informing,” Denny stated.

He believed that the absence of the character witnesses affected the outcomes in some of the re-sentenced cases.

Local police have long complained about the problem of witnesses being afraid to testify in court. As a result, they frequently have difficulty proving their cases in the courts, and have watched people they know to be guilty of crimes walk free.

Several programmes, such as Crime Stop, Operation Kingfish and the Witness Protection Programme, have been instituted to give potential witnesses some comfort in giving evidence, but with limited success.

In the case of the most elaborate of them, the Witness Protection Programme, which might involve relocating witnesses overseas, individuals are known to reject the programme because they don’t want to sever family or community ties.

Crime Stop, a law enforcement and private sector initiative, provides a toll free number for individuals to give information to the police without identifying themselves. The organisers say they have been reaping successes, but several cases remain unsolved, some dating back years.

More recently, Operation Kingfish has been launched to fight crime, especially drug-related crimes. That programme too has reported successes.

However, some of the country’s top policemen, prominent among which is British recruit Deputy Commissioner Mark Shields, have resorted to freely making their cell phone numbers public, in the hope of getting information.

The fear that witnesses have of reprisals is not entirely unfounded, officials concede.

Only last month, the principal of a St Mary primary school was murdered and police theorised that he was killed because he was to be a witness in a murder case set for October.

A witness in the case of Joel Andem, who is in custody in connection with several alleged murders, told the courts that he had nothing to say, because he lived in the community frequented by Andem.

In yet another case involving Andem, a witness to the abduction and slaying of businesswoman Sylvia Edwards was murdered at a Hagley Park Road bus stop nearly three years ago.

Police investigators themselves are not immune from threat. Just last Wednesday, a female cop, inspector Herfa Beckford, told the Corporate Area court that her life had been threatened in the case of the Avalanche murder, and that a witness in the case had been killed already.

In that case, Garret Burke is accused of using his truck to push David Garden, 30, over a ravine to his death.

Such dangers to witnesses have given rise to deeper consideration of how technology can be used to facilitate witnesses without having them physically present in court. But the issue remains fledgling.

As for the instant problem facing the IJCHR, Denny said taking written statements from witnesses would not work as they could not be cross-examined in courts, a crucial element of the trial.

“I need to make it clear that as human rights advocates, we are not condoning the crimes that anyone of these men did.. Every innocent death in the country affects us,” Denny said, apparently to head off potential critics.

“But in this re-sentencing exercise, our role is to find individuals in the community who could give the courts, the judges, a side of this individual that we would otherwise not have heard about,” he said. For example, one convict who was a swimmer, had saved lives before he was convicted of taking a life.

The local human rights group recently led a search for character witnesses, utilising the services of five legal interns from the Centre for Capital Punishment Studies based in London, United Kingdom, and one Jamaican-based lawyer.

In many cases, they found themselves deep in the guts of the island’s violent inner-cities.

One intern, Max Hardisty, said the experience garnered in Jamaica was exceptional.

“We have no place in England where violence is so common place. In talking to the people, what we found was an existence in a culture of casual suffering from violent crimes that these persons are exposed to,” Hardisty told the Sunday Observer.

“I am sure, I will be affected by my experiences here for a very long time. It is a long lasting and highly educational experience.”

Another intern, Gemma Loughran said she had previously worked in South Africa, noting that the similarities with Jamaica were striking.

“On our first day in some of the communities, there was curiosity as to what we were about. After we explained to them, that turned to almost silence. They were terrified of talking, and were even worried about the implications of speaking to us from their doorsteps,” said Loughran.

Another striking similarity to her was the huge class divide here, and she felt that, “it was almost unreal that you could live in one part of Jamaica and not see the ghettos.”

Locally based intern, Gillian Burgess, too said the experience was phenomenal.

“I was afforded the opportunity of making contact with all the persons to be sentenced. Nothing prepared me for the impact that that would make on me,” she said.

For Frances Ibekwe, the experience working in Jamaica would also be a lasting one.

“It is easier to make contact in the United Kingdom, and it was rewarding to actually find individuals who were willing to testify,” she said.

Anna Lau, another intern said, many of her cases were adjourned.

She noted that while there was an eagerness by potential witnesses to participate on the phone, “there was a reluctance to come forward. And the reluctance was more acute in some communities than in others.”

virtuee@jamaicaobserver.com