Editorial | Move on Kartel amendment

It remains inexplicable to this newspaper that the government has not proceeded with the Kartel jury amendment, which would allow judges to continue trials on their own when they encounter tainted jurors.

It should not require the frequent complaints of Chief Justice Bryan Sykes, or repeated calls from this newspaper, for the logic and urgency of the proposal to be recognised. The need is obvious.

Accordingly, The Gleaner’s Editorial Board again urges Justice Minister Delroy Chuck to move ahead with this amendment to the Jury Act. A broader overhaul of the law, including the proposal that bench trials rather than jury trials become Jamaica’s default, can come later, though not too much later.

Having already taken legislation on bench trials to Parliament, only to halt debate after the Opposition identified significant flaws, Mr Chuck should now be in a position to convene a joint select committee to review the proposals. In January, he clearly put the proverbial cart before the horse.

However, given its non-controversial nature and its potential to improve the administration of justice, the Kartel amendment should be separated from the wider reform package and approved independently.

Named after Jamaican dancehall artiste Vybz Kartel, whose real name is Adidja Palmer, the proposed law would allow a judge to assume sole responsibility for a case and carry it through to verdict if a jury is discharged because it has become compromised.

The issue arose from the 2014 trial and conviction of Kartel and three associates for the 2011 murder of Clive ‘Lizard’ Williams.

GRAVE CONCERNS

In the early weeks of the 64-day trial, one juror asked to be excused after seeing one of the accused men at a lock-up where her son was being held. She feared possible repercussions.

On the trial’s final day, the jury forewoman reported to the presiding judge that another juror had offered her a bribe to return a not-guilty verdict. Other jurors reported similar concerns.

During an in-camera discussion, prosecutors, despite the defence’s argument that the trial should be abandoned, decided to proceed with the allegedly compromised juror. Had that juror been removed, the trial would have collapsed because the number of remaining jurors would have fallen below the legal minimum required for a murder case.

In a 2024 ruling, the United Kingdom-based Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, Jamaica’s final appellate court, held that the presence of the “miscreant” rendered the convictions unsafe. Jurors aware of that individual’s conduct, it reasoned, might have overcompensated during deliberations and reached a guilty verdict for the wrong reasons.

The Privy Council acknowledged the serious consequences that can arise from discharging a jury shortly before the end of a long and complex criminal trial, as well as the risk of deliberate attempts to derail proceedings by creating circumstances that force a jury’s dismissal.

To address that problem, England and Wales have enacted legislation that allows trials to continue before a judge alone where jury tampering has occurred.

NO ALTERNATIVE

In Jamaica, however, the Privy Council noted that courts currently have no alternative but to discharge the jury and end the trial, if that is necessary to protect the integrity of the process.

Speaking recently, Justice Sykes referred to a case in western Jamaica that had to be abandoned after a jury was discharged. The trial had lasted four weeks and was awaiting closing addresses and the judge’s summation.

“After four weeks of trial, that was it,” he said. “It was just waiting for addresses and the summation to be done, but the jury had to be discharged.”

He added that the Privy Council had pointed to a solution for several years since the Palmer case had reached that court.

Indeed, this is an easy fix. As The Gleaner argued following the Privy Council’s ruling, the relevant provision of the United Kingdom’s Criminal Justice Act 2003 could be adapted with minimal modification and incorporated into Jamaica’s Jury Act.

At the same time, given the courts’ chronic shortage of jurors, Jamaica should seriously examine whether the current system can be repaired or whether the presumption that jury trials represent the highest form of justice has become more myth than reality.

The Kartel amendment offers a practical remedy to a clear and recurring problem. Parliament should enact it without further delay.