MONTEGO BAY, St James – The easter session on the Montego Bay court circuit yesterday opened to a poor showing of jurors to deal with the list of 41 cases scheduled to be tried over the six-week period.

Of 53 jurors called to duty, 16 – some bearing applications to be excused – showed up at yesterday’s opening.

However, Supreme Court judge Horace Marsh who will preside over the circuit said that while he would excuse jurors who had good excuses, regard had to be had to the fact that the cases – which were too many for the time allotted – could not be tried without their services.

“We start with very obvious challenges…where the excuses are good and sufficient they will be excused, but we are very short..,” he said, noting that he appreciated the time and effort of the jurors who showed up.

Forty-one cases, eleven of which were traversed from the previous circuit, are scheduled to be tried during the easter session.

Of those cases, 18 are for murder.

Seventeen, three of which are for incest, involve sexual offenses of rape and carnal abuse.

This according to the Director of Public Prosecution’s representative, M Jackson, was worrying when one considered that the number of incests, albeit small, represented an increase over the zero for the crime that existed before.

In the meantime a special sitting could be convened to retry the cases of Alroy Shaw, Ricardo ‘Stickman’ Taylor, Rick ‘Tappa Rat’ Thorpe and Sylvann ‘Penguin’ Green who are charged for November 2006 killings of four family members in Retirement, St James. Otherwise, it is unlikely that they will be tried during the easter sitting as the DPP’s representative said it would not be fair to allow them to take up the major part of the court’s time given the available resources.

“I cannot anticipate even to commence this matter,” she said noting that the case had used three weeks of the court’s time during the last circuit.

Speaking on behalf of the defense bar, attorney Hugh Thompson pledged to do everything necessary to facilitate the smooth transmission of justice during the circuit.