Former Prime Minister PJ Patterson and eminent jurist Hugh Small have classified as “a risk” and “fatal error” the decision to continue the criminal trial of Vybz Kartel and his co-accused after it became clear that a juror had attempted to bribe the panel.

Additionally Patterson and Small, both King’s Counsel, said it was unfortunate that “neither the trial judge, Justice Lennox Campbell, nor the three judges who heard the appeal from the ruling and verdict, were apparently aware that there was a judgment of the Court of Appeal of Jamaica in 1983 that ruled in similar circumstances, that the duty of the court was to discharge the entire jury and order a new trial”.

“To have continued the criminal case against Vybz Kartel, et al, notwithstanding 64 days of trial, was not merely a risk, but a fatal error to render any final verdict unacceptable in accordance with the tenets of justice and the decision of our own Court of Appeal in 1983,” the men said in a joint statement.

Last Thursday, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council quashed the murder convictions of Adidja “Vybz Kartel” Palmer, Shawn “Shawn Storm” Campbell, Kahira Jones, and Andre St John for the 2011 murder of Clive “Lizard” Williams and placed the question of a retrial back in the lap of Jamaica’s Appeal Court.

The issue of whether Justice Campbell, who had tried the four men, should have dismissed the jury upon learning that one juror had been tainted, was one of three points the Privy Council had been asked to rule on and has been seen as the main reason the convictions were found to be unstable.

The law lords, in their ruling, said the decision by the original trial judge to continue the murder trial after the attempted bribe of the jury had been brought to his attention “gave rise to a miscarriage of justice”.

Law Lord Lloyd-Jones, in delivering the ruling, said the board was of the view that the tainted juror
— whom the board referred to as Juror X
— should not have been kept on the jury.

“There was a need to isolate the other members of the jury from the source of contamination. In the board’s view, allowing Juror X to continue to serve on the jury is fatal to the safety of the convictions which followed. This was an infringement of the defendants’ fundamental right to a fair hearing by an independent and impartial court in accordance with Section 16 of Chapter III of the Jamaican Constitution,” he stated.

Lord Lloyd-Jones also said that while the board is “mindful of the very serious consequences which may flow from having to discharge a jury shortly before the end of a long and complex criminal trial, it is also very conscious of the danger of deliberate attempts to derail criminal trials, in particular in their closing stages, by engineering situations in which it becomes necessary to discharge the jury”.

The case referred to by Patterson and Small was The Gleaner Company Limited and John Hearne versus Michael Manley, in which they both appeared as counsel for the plaintiff, Manley.

At the trial, Justice UD Gordon, after three weeks of evidence, discharged the foreman as a special juror who was hearing evidence in a libel case in which Manley had claimed damages for an article, written by Hearne and published by The Gleaner.

During the hearing of evidence for Manley The Gleaner produced evidence that the foreman of the jury was employed to the National Workers’ Union during the time when Manley held the executive position of island supervisor of the NWU.

Justice Gordon discharged the foreman of the jury on the grounds of apparent bias but refused to discharge the entire jury and decided to continue with the six special jurors who remained. However, The Gleaner and Hearne appealed Justice Gordon’s decision.

Patterson and Small said the Court of Appeal, at the time consisting of justices Edward Zacca, Ira Rowe, and ROC White, decided by a majority that the entire jury must be discharged, and a new trial take place.

In his judgment, the president of the Court of Appeal, Justice Zacca, stated: “Nothing should be done which creates even a suspicion that there has been an improper interference with the course of justice.

“The learned trial judge’s finding of the foreman’s ‘known admiration and contact with the plaintiff,’ taken, together with the period of time during which jurors had been sitting together; the fact that the trial judge ought not to make enquiries from the other jurors as to what had taken place in the jury-box; and the nature of the case warranted a discharge of the entire jury. One cannot tell to what extent the bias of the foreman may have influenced the remaining jurors,” Zacca said further in that judgment.

In their statement on Tuesday, Patterson and Small said it is regrettable that this case was not brought to the attention of Justice Campbell, the judges of the Court of Appeal — Dennis Morrison, Patrick Brooks, and Franklyn Williams — or cited in the Privy Council.

Kartel, Campbell, Jones, and St John were accused of killing Williams on August 16, 2011 after he failed to return two unlicensed firearms which Kartel had allegedly given to him for safekeeping. Williams has not been seen since and his body has never been found.

Eight weeks into the trial one of the original 12 jurors was discharged due to “a personal difficulty” leaving 11 jurors on the case. On the final day of the judge’s summation on March 13, 2014, he was notified 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 the Crown and the defence, the judge ruled that the trial should proceed. The jury later that day, by a majority of 10 to 1, convicted the men.

In April 2014 Kartel was sentenced to life in prison, with eligibility for parole after serving 35 years of his sentence. His co-accused were also handed life sentences, with Shawn Storm and Jones being eligible for parole after serving 25 years, and St John being eligible after serving 15 years.

In April 2020, following an appeal, the men’s parole times were reduced by two-and-a-half years each.

In September that same year the men were granted conditional leave to challenge their murder convictions before the Privy Council.