Judge blasts coroners poor jury selection
September 29, 2006
The selection of jurors at the dilapidated building housing the Corporate Area Coroner's Court came under judicial fire last week when a Supreme Court judge ruled that the selection was flawed and ordered Coroner Patrick Murphy to pay the legal costs for a new inquest.
Justice Lennox Campbell, in handing down his decision, found that section 18 of the Jury Act which was mandatory, was breached because there were some jurors sitting in the Coroner's Court on repeated occasions, within a nine-month period.
"This flawed selection process is aggravated by the involvement of agents of the state being involved in the killing of the deceased," the judge said. The judge said the relevant section mandated the registrar to make up panels for service so that "all jurors shall be summoned equally."
Another inquest
The coroner and the Attorney-General were named as respondents and the judge ordered that due to the defect in the selection process, it was desirable in the interest of justice, that another inquest be held by the coroner of an adjoining parish.
Coroner Murphy was ordered to pay the applicant's legal costs of the judicial review hearing, as well as the legal costs for the new inquest.
Dionne Holness, a 56-year-old businesswoman who was the applicant, had brought the application to quash the jury's verdict concerning the death of her 20-year-old son, Dwayne Graham, of 57 Waltham Park Road, Kingston 11.
Graham was fatally shot by the police at the intersection of Espeut Avenue and Waltham Park Road, on June 19, 2003.
The jury found that Graham's death was due to multiple gunshot wounds and his death was a result of justifiable homicide and no one was criminally responsible....
Author: Barbara Gayle
Source: Jamaica Gleaner
