The trial of alleged Klansman faction leader Tesha Miller and his 24 co-accused will begin on February 2 this year following a decision handed down by Supreme Court judge Justice Dale Palmer on Monday morning.

The 21-day adjournment was granted following an application by the Crown last Wednesday — January 7, the original trial date — seeking a June start date for the matter due to outstanding material critical to the case. Justice Palmer, who had indicated that he was not minded to grant an adjournment to June, had been expected to rule last Friday as to the start date following submissions from the prosecution and the defence.

When the sitting resumed on Monday in the Home Circuit Division of the Supreme Court, Justice Palmer said he was of the opinion that a further delay would not “aid in the just disposal of the matter”.

“In fact, to seek to delay an adjournment to the period that was requested, it may be difficult to commence the matter if that were granted before much later in the year, possibly into the new year,” Justice Palmer indicated.

He said while he had considered the several additional submissions by both the Crown and representatives of the defence concerning substantially issues of disclosure of potential DNA results, Communications Forensics and Cybercrime Division (CFCD) reports, [outstanding] transcript and scene of crime material, the two-week window would be sufficient.

“This matter has been before the court for almost two years. We have had a significant case management period and a trial date was set in April of last year. I expect if the Crown intended to rely on these documents, efforts could have been put in place to have those arrangements made,” Justice Palmer stated.

“Of course, when I speak of the Crown I don’t refer to only the prosecutors but the Crown would have had the means to have accelerated their efforts or improve their efforts to have these documents and items ready,” he said, adding that the “brief adjournment” he has allowed is primarily [due to the fact that] several counsel had complained bitterly that they were being routinely barred by prison officials from visiting their clients to take instructions and/or to share documentation that had been disclosed electronically.

This, they said, remained so despite the presence of an April 2024 practice direction issued by head of the judiciary, Chief Justice Bryan Sykes, which authorised disclosure by electronic method (criminal proceedings), for all trial proceedings in the Home Circuit and Rural Circuit Criminal courts.

“I am assured that the issue is now being resolved and I expect that a brief adjournment would benefit the defendants in being able to instruct their counsel and as such the trial will commence on February 2, 2026 with the first of the Crown’s 99 witnesses,” Justice Palmer said Monday.

Added Justice Palmer: “Witnesses become unavailable for any number of reasons and we would have that to attend to. I believe if the Crown is saying their 99 witnesses are ready, let us proceed.”

The court, in the meantime, gave the nod for 50 civilian witnesses to be subpoenaed and for the police witnesses to be warned to appear.

In adjourning the matter, the bail for accused medical doctor Paul Robinson was extended while the remaining defendants who attended the hearing via Zoom were remanded.

Miller — who is currently serving 38 years at hard labour for engineering the 2008 murder of former Jamaica Urban Transit Company Chairman Douglas Chambers — is answering to charges under the Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organisations) (Amendment) Act, commonly called the anti-gang law, for leadership of the Klansman gang.

He and the 24 other accused now facing trial are alleged to have participated in several criminal activities between August 5, 2017 and August 22, 2022 in St Catherine. The charges include murder, conspiracy to murder, attempted murder, robbery with aggravation, illegal possession of firearm, and illegal possession of ammunition.