THE seven jurors who are to decide the fate of Police Constable Noel Maitland have already been instructed to put aside any biases and to ignore news stories and social media comments, if they begin deliberations as expected today.

High Court Judge Leighton Pusey will continue his instructions to the jury today, having started on Tuesday.

Maitland is on trial in the Home Circuit Court in Kingston for murder and preventing the lawful burial of a corpse in relation to the July 12, 2022 disappearance of his social media influencer girlfriend, Donna-Lee Donaldson, who was 24 years old.

Pusey on Tuesday told the jurors that their role in the case is not to play detective but to come to a verdict based on their assessment of all the evidence that was presented to them throughout the eight-month-long trial.

“What you are asked to do is to look at the evidence, and from the evidence you will determine whether the person is guilty or not guilty. I say that because you may come to a verdict of guilty if the evidence satisfies you and you don’t know all that has happened. Or you may come to a verdict of not guilty because the evidence doesn’t satisfy you and you can’t answer every single question,” Pusey said.

“Part of my job is to point out to you what are the important questions you need to answer to come to a verdict. I am going to point out some of the things that may come before you that you do not necessarily need to address. However, as you hear, you look at the evidence as a whole and sometimes you may see things where, because the evidence is insufficient,it may give you a difficulty or you may say, ‘Well, I can’t rely on it because there is not enough evidence,’ ” Pusey added.

He urged the jurors to be neutral in their approach to arriving at a verdict and to do away with emotions. He also impressed upon them that they should not use Maitland’s formal mode of dress or his mannerism in court to either acquit or convict him.

“You should approach this as a neutral; you should not have any particular emotion in relation to the matter. We understand the emotion in this circumstance of the mother of Miss Donaldson, and her friends and relatives, because a crucial part of their family has disappeared and they don’t know what has happened to that person.

“We can understand the situation of Mr Maitland who, by his indication, feels he is being blamed for something that he has not had any responsibility for. As judges we are not concerned about the emotion,” Pusey said, pointing out to the jurors that if the evidence doesn’t satisfy them beyond a reasonable doubt then their verdict should be not guilty.

“We are not focusing on emotions, and we are not focusing on the hype on social media and what you read in newspapers. That is not a consideration for us. Many times we will hear in society that such and such a person passed away and it can’t just go suh, somebody has to account for it. That is not our concern. What we are concerned about is if, in this particular case, whether or not the evidence is such that we can be sure that the person before the court is guilty. And if you can’t be sure then you, in fact, need to find the person not guilty,” he said.

In arriving at their verdict, Pusey told the jurors that they should not make any decision based on the fact that Maitland is a policeman and because police are accused of wrongdoing sometimes.

“You might say you know how police stay — they do all kinds of wrong and they don’t get punished for it. You can’t commit to those particular views. And if you have anything in your mind like that, put it away because everybody is equal in the court of law — whomever they are — and your decision as judges is to look at them in that particular context. You can’t make any biased or prejudiced inferences.

“This case is simply about the fact that one person is missing and it is for you to determine what has happened to that person, whether you think the evidence is showing you that the person is dead or something serious happened to them. It is not for you to determine whether their lifestyle, their circumstances, or anything else is something you agree with or not.

“In the same way, the person before the court is entitled to a fair and impartial consideration of the evidence, regardless of what you think about background or circumstances. As judges, therefore, you are required to decide this case based on evidence,” Pusey added.

He said that evidence may contradict what witnesses have said and therefore it is important for the jurors to assess witnesses based on reliability and credibility. Pusey implored the seven members to use their common sense to determine whether something is true, just as they do in their everyday life.

“You don’t consider the fact that Mr Maitland is there, well-dressed, and seems to be well-mannered and so therefore he couldn’t have done anything, [even though] his character is important,” the judge said as he reminded the jurors that the accused is innocent until he is proven guilty.

“Not because the police have charged X person or Y person, we can’t just say, ‘Well, police wouldn’t lock them up if they didn’t do something wrong.’ Everybody who stands before the court — no matter what has been said in the press or anywhere else — is presumed innocent until there is enough evidence to prove that they are guilty.”

The jurors were asked not to speculate anything but were told they could use inferences where necessary. He told them that inference is a common sense conclusion based on the evidence in court.

“An example I like to give is, we are in this courtroom and we are listening to evidence and doing all kinds of things. When we came in, the sun was shining bright and everything was wonderful. When we go outside we see everywhere is wet. You see water running in the street, and people with umbrellas, and people look wet. We can infer, though we didn’t see it, that it rained while we were inside. All the evidence points towards that.

“You have no doubt that it was raining but you have seen rain before and you have seen the results of rain. One of the things that we are going to be doing is to look at some of the inferences we can come to and how you can use that in coming to your decision,” Pusey said.

DONALDSON… has been missing since July 12, 2022