Editorial | Mario Deane and juries

The Gleaner supports Mercia Fraser – Mario Deane’s mother – in urging Jamaicans to serve as jurors – at least once.

“I realise people are timid to do it, especially on a murder charge, but it would be good to have the experience,” she said.

But of greater urgency, we believe, is the overhaul of the jury system, including changes in the law to make bench trials the norm, rather than the exception. For it ought to be clear to everyone, especially the justice minister, Delroy Chuck, that the jury system is badly broken and can’t be mended with Band-Aids.

Yet, Mr Chuck continues his perpetual foot-dragging in debating the issue, while thousands of Jamaicans – victims and accused – are denied justice because of perennial delays in their cases.

Until last week, Ms Fraser was one of those persons. She waited a decade for the trial, and, ultimately, verdicts guilty for manslaughter and other charges, against three police officers – Corporal Elaine Stewart and Constables Juliana Clevon and Marlon Grant – who were a party to her son’s death.

In 2014, Mario Deane, 31, was arrested in Montego Bay for possessing a marijuana cigarette. He was placed in a cell in the city’s Barnett Street police station. He was at the station for three days, during which he was beaten to a frazzle by mentally-ill detainees, into whose cell he, according to evidence in court, was placed, apparently to teach him a lesson for being difficult and pronouncing a dislike of police officers. Mr Deane similarly spent days in hospital before he died. Over the next 10 years Ms Fraser, supported by human rights groups, campaigned for justice for Mario Deane and for her own healing.

In 2017, one of Mr Deane’s alleged beaters, Damion Cargill, was released in the care of his family. He was determined to be unfit to plead because of his mental condition.

In 2020, the two others, Marvin Orr and Adrian Morgan, who by then were declared capable of entering pleas, pleaded guilty to manslaughter. But having been in lock-up for nearly six years, they were released because their time in jail had already exceeded the minimum sentence for the crime.

STALLED

But year after year, the trial of the recently convicted police officers remained stalled for a myriad of reasons. At one point they were reported to have had difficulty getting legal representation. There was the matter, too, of incomplete investigative files. Then the COVID-19 pandemic intervened. And there was a recurring and egregious failure to find sufficient jurors in the parish of St James to hear the case.

Last November, fed up with the juror problem after 300 summonses were prepared and none were delivered, Justice Bertram Morrison sent the case to the parish of Westmoreland. He called the situation in St James “a national disgrace”.

In the new parish a jury was empanelled, the case was heard and a verdict arrived at. Ms Fraser says she can now get closure for her son’s death.

However, it would be wrong for either Ms Fraser or anyone else to assume that the problems experienced in St James – people’s reluctance to serve on juries and the tardiness in serving summonses – were unique to that parish.

Indeed, in recent years this newspaper has reported in several instances of court sessions being delayed or stalled because of an insufficiency of jurors, as well as on the pleas by the chief justice, Bryan Sykes, for members of all strata of Jamaican society to serve. Justice Sykes has on a number occasions also lamented the absence of professionals from the jury pools at court; their excuses for opting out; and how they are enabled by others in their social crowd in doing so.

The Gleaner has previously called for a narrowing of the categories of people exempt from jury duty, which include almost all civil servants; ministers of religion who do not hold other jobs; nurses and midwives; practising medical doctors; veterinarians; dentists; teachers, and tertiary students.

SUMMONSES

There also has to be more robust serving of summonses on prospective jurors and the increase and enforcement of penalties on those who fail to turn up.

But more importantly, Jamaica must seriously consider Justice Sykes’ oft-proposed solution to the crisis, the mandatory use of bench trials, that is, the hearing of cases by judges alone.

Jamaica’s constitution doesn’t mandate that criminal trials must be heard by juries. Rather, citizens are guaranteed fair hearing before competent courts.

Indeed, some cases are already heard by judges only, such as those in the Gun Court, as well as charges under the Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organisations) Act – the so-called anti-gang law. In most other circumstances, cases are heard by a judge alone if the accused and prosecution agree.

Minister Chuck has for years promised to have the matter debated, including hearings before a joint select committee of Parliament. This question, however, isn’t one of those matters on which the Government moves with speed.

For the sake of future Mario Deanes and Mercia Frasers, and everyone who cares about justice, the administration should find another gear on the matter.