President of the Judicial Committee of the United Kingdom Privy Council Lord Reed on Thursday indicated that the panel, in reviewing the murder case of popular Jamaican entertainer Vybz Kartel and his three co-convicts, will pay attention to the pronouncements of Jamaica’s own Appeal Court on the decisions of original trial judge Justice Lennox Campbell relating to the jury in the case.

Attorneys for the appellants have asked the body to say, among other things, whether the judge should have discharged the entire jury or just the tainted juror after allegations surfaced that there were attempts to bribe members of the jury during the trial. They are also asking the panel to say whether the judge was wrong to invite the jury to reach a verdict late in the day, given the special circumstances of the case.

King’s Counsel Peter Knox, the attorney appearing for the prosecution, making his final submissions in the two-day hearing on Thursday, contended that the import of the vantage point of the Jamaican body should not be overlooked by the Privy Council.

“I do submit that it is important to bear in mind what the Court of Appeal had to say about this matter; they have familiarity with how juries work, how the system works, and it is their primary responsibility to ensure the system works properly. You operate as a second review court and I do submit that great respect should be given to the Court of Appeal’s assessment of this matter,” Knox said.

Lord Reed, in responding to Knox, said, “It will be.”

Continuing with his argument, Knox said, “There was no error of law in what the judge did, that’s what it boils down to, he acted within his discretion; it was not an unreasonable direction, given the extremely difficult situation he found himself in and the possibility they could still get their verdict.

“Looking at the case as a whole, was there a real risk that the case was unfair? I say no,” Knox contended in driving home his point that it was established that defendants cannot derail trials just by making offers of bribes to jurors.

“I submit the Court of Appeal, who knows about how this system works, saw nothing wrong in how it happened… they [in their ruling] described some of the cases about sending juries out rather late… in my submission, the Court of Appeal was perfectly entitled to come up with the conclusion they did, no error of law was identified and I submit it is not this court’s place to interfere with the Court of Appeal’s judgment on these matters. This is a case in which there was no substantial miscarriage of justice,” the prosecutor said.

“Even if the judges’ directions were not as strong as they could have been, or even if the retirement was too late in the day, there is no reason to suspect the jury was biased,” he stated.

After a 64-day trial before Justice Campbell and a jury in the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston in 2014, Vybz Kartel, whose given name is Adidja Palmer, and his co-convicts Shawn Campbell, Kahira Jones, and Andre St John, were convicted of the 2011 murder of Clive “Lizard” Williams.

According to the Crown, the appellants murdered Williams on August 16, 2011 after he failed to return two unlicensed firearms which Palmer had given him for safe keeping. Williams has not been seen or heard from after that date, and his body has never been found.

On day 56 of the trial, Justice Campbell was notified of an allegation that a juror had attempted to bribe others by offering $500,000 to give a not guilty verdict. After investigating the allegation and considering it with counsel for both the prosecution and the defence, the judge decided that the trial should proceed without the discharge of the jury or the particular juror said to have offered the bribes. The judge finished his summing up at 3:42 pm on March 13, 2014. The jury returned at 5:35 pm, at which time the forewoman told the court that the jury had not reached a unanimous verdict. The judge sent the jury out again. At 6:08 pm, the jury returned and, by a majority of 10 to 1, convicted the appellants of the murder.

Thursday, in assessing the evidence in relation to the premises at which the killing took place and the subsequent demolition of a section, Knox said, “This was Palmer’s house and there is no report of any damage being done to the house at all by Palmer.”

In referencing the next category of evidence, which consisted of voice and text messages by Palmer, the prosecutor said, “The Court of Appeal’s summary of that evidence just couldn’t be clearer…you can see the nature of this evidence.”

In making further reference to a text from Palmer some days after which said, “Between mi an yuh, a chop wi chop up the bwoy Lizard, fine fine, and dash him weh, as long as yuh live dem can nevah find him,” Knox declared, “The whole picture couldn’t be clearer.”

He further pointed the Law Lords to texts between the deceased and his girlfriend which, he said, showed beyond “a shadow of a doubt that the deceased was on his way to be executed and he suddenly realised what was going to happen to him”.

“There are some texts also from Shawn Campbell which were incriminating,” Knox said, while noting that all the accused had given unsworn statements in which they distanced themselves from the allegations, claiming in instances that the police cooked up the evidence.

In the meantime, the UK-based attorney for the appellants, in countering the arguments by the prosecution that the judge was not obliged to discharge the jurors because of the single tainted juror, said that position was “flawed”.

“His submissions this morning focused on whether or not the judge was acting reasonably and that, in our submission, is not the key question. The key question is whether or not the fair-minded bystander would effectively conclude there was a real risk of bias and the fair-minded bystander test has been consistently applied by criminal courts,” he contended.

“In our submission, the prosecution’s approach in saying you can have a jury with one biased member and it is still a lawful jury, is inconsistent with the statutory scheme,” he said, noting features of Jamaica’s Jury Act which outlines a properly constituted jury.

According to the provision, 12 jurors shall form the array. It says if any member of the jury, in the course of the trial, dies or is discharged by the court, the jury
— as long as their numbers are not reduced by more than one
— should be considered as being properly constituted for all the purposes of the trial and the trial should proceed and the verdict may be given. It also says where one juror dies or has been discharged, the verdict of 11 jurors in a trial for treason or murder, or six jurors otherwise, shall be deemed to be a unanimous verdict.

“We would submit that if someone is biased and is essentially being discounted by the judge, that is inconsistent [with the Act],” he said. He further pointed out that the tainted juror, who was subsequently tried for the offence after the trial, has been convicted.

“The expectation of the legislation is that all jurors would participate,” he added, arguing that the judge did not question the jurors to see the extent to which the poison had spread.

On the prosecution’s argument that discharging the whole jury would undermine the system, he said the answer to the system being undermined would be for Parliament to amend the legislation.

The hearing of the appeal
— which was presided over by Lord Reed, Lord Lloyd-Jones, Lord Briggs, Lord Burrows, and Lady Simler — concluded on Thursday. The ruling is expected in three months.