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Justice on trial - Hauntings of the Woolmer case and beyond
Justice on trial - Hauntings of the Woolmer case and beyond
published: Wednesday | May 23, 2007
This March 20 photo shows the body of Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer lying in a morgue following his death in Kingston. Woolmer, 58, was killed by strangulation, police have claimed. - REUTERS
Jacqueline Samuels-Brown, Contributor
I followed with interest and sometimes wry amusement, the developing story regarding the unfortunate death of Bob Woolmer in Jamaica. I couldn't help but reflect on what would have been likely to happen had he died in a different place in Jamaica and the potential suspects of different circumstances.
After the carefully managed press conferences and the importation of additional investigative resources, what was previously a case of suspected murder is now said to be death by natural causes the police still maintain their stance.
Where a serious crime is suspected to have been committed police action is not only warranted, but generally expected. In this case, however, the police activity stopped short. No one was arrested or detained; no suspect made any accusation of heavy-handed police treatment. And that is how it should be. But it could have been different, as it so often is for local Jamaicans, particularly young men of poor circumstance.
In similar situations, what has happened, and what I am sure will happen again, is this:
1. A 'dragnet' would have been thrown or an area cordoned off by the police.
2. Approximately 26 youths could have been detained.
3. There would have been an initial interview (sometimes called interrogation) of each detainee to find out if any link could be made between him and the crime or if he could otherwise provide valuable information.
4. After about one week, a few lucky ones, it could be eight, with the help of their lawyers, their impoverished relatives' unrelenting visits to the stations, would break through the net.
Of course, for those who have now been released and those who remain in custody, the conditions of detention are often unspeakable:
Little or no contact with relatives.
A change of clothes allowed in once or twice per week (this is subject to change).
If you are lucky, food from home once or twice per week, to supplement the often unhygienic and insipid rations provided at the expense of the state.
Cold concrete to sleepon.
The constant stench of human faeces, urine and other unbearably foul odours.
Little or no lighting, day and night.
Poor ventilation.
Makeshift arrangements for sanitation and hygiene.
Overcrowding.
Constant fear of attacks from fellow detainees, as the degrading and dehumanising conditions bring out the best of the beast.
Then there are the lawyer's visits for the lucky ones. If the lawyer is sufficiently insistent, or senior, or with enough prestige, or if the police are just not too darned tired, the lawyer-client interview will take place in a private room with the police at the door. This is the way it ought to go. However, a few months ago when I last interviewed a young man at the Hunts Bay Police Station lock-up, it was in a passage inside the cell block. I conferred with my client in semi-darkness, engulfed in a mind-dulling and gut-wrenching stench, the temperature in excess of 900F degrees. My client, a detainee not charged with any crime, throughout the interview was standing but bent over from waist down, as he tried to adjust himself to the fact that one hand was handcuffed to the wall and to try to secure a little privacy so that the policemen, another visiting lawyer and a detainee would not hear everything he said to me. I escaped as soon as it was professionally decent for me to do. I left him there.
Detainees
So you are one of the five detainees to have been kept back, and after a time you and perhaps one or two of the others are charged. There is a ray of hope. You have a lawyer and you are entitled to and will finally get bail. Not so. 'Investigations are still not completed', 'this is a serious crime' and you 'have no fixed address'. Of course, life in a 'big lane', existing outside of the formal economy, is not the best basis for establishing that you have fixed ties and can be easily found (a proper consideration before you can be granted bail).
Having been charged, you can spend six months, one year and sometimes more, before your trial starts or you get bail. The conditions are enough to make you physically ill, crush your spirit, destroy your will to fight and break your heart. Even if you are able to partake of some of the ganja smuggled in, it may make you more compliant, but not one bit more hopeful.
Charged
Alas, not all investigations are as speedy as that into the death of Bob Woolmer and you, one of the two or three charged, may have to wait up to five years to hear that your 'victim's' death was due to natural causes or that otherwise, there is not enough evidence against you. On that final day in court, when you are ultimately vindicated, you could not even understand what the judge said; you are ganja-comatose, or just too shell-shocked, or simply too battle-weary. It begins to sink in later when it is explained to you by your lawyer or a kind policeman who processes you on your way out, with a stern warning not to do 'it' again.
Not all cases go this way, but too many of them do. The sad part is that there are hundreds of angry youth out there who have been treated this way by the police and justice system. They won't sue the state for compensation. Their sense of worth is already shattered, their belief in the justice system has been completely eroded, they don't believe they can afford the economic luxury of pursuing their rights (even the bus fare to the lawyer's office is hard to come by).
Unfortunately, that is not the end of it for them or you or for me. The phrase 'children live what they learn' is equally applicable to adults and so, but for the grace of God, go you and I. Beware of the danger these devalued human beings pose. Keep your car windows tightly wound up, bar all of your windows and doors at home, get electronic security if you can. Do all of those wise things but, in the meantime, we fool ourselves if we do not understand that fundamental and long-term solutions are needed.
There is a Justice Reform Task Force that is currently deliberating to make recommendations for the overhaul of the justice system. To my mind, it provides a golden opportunity for us to get the conversation going. "Which way, Jamaica?" We should not squander this chance. We must endeavour to use it to give voice to those who have been rendered speechless, dumbstruck by the institutionalised alienation, poverty and hopelessness. Their voices must be heard too, even if we have to be their ventriloquists. Be silent and we perish and our experiment at nationhood ultimately fails, in this we all have a paradoxical but common interest.
Jacqueline Samuels-Brown is an attorney-at-law.
published: Wednesday | May 23, 2007
This March 20 photo shows the body of Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer lying in a morgue following his death in Kingston. Woolmer, 58, was killed by strangulation, police have claimed. - REUTERS
Jacqueline Samuels-Brown, Contributor
I followed with interest and sometimes wry amusement, the developing story regarding the unfortunate death of Bob Woolmer in Jamaica. I couldn't help but reflect on what would have been likely to happen had he died in a different place in Jamaica and the potential suspects of different circumstances.
After the carefully managed press conferences and the importation of additional investigative resources, what was previously a case of suspected murder is now said to be death by natural causes the police still maintain their stance.
Where a serious crime is suspected to have been committed police action is not only warranted, but generally expected. In this case, however, the police activity stopped short. No one was arrested or detained; no suspect made any accusation of heavy-handed police treatment. And that is how it should be. But it could have been different, as it so often is for local Jamaicans, particularly young men of poor circumstance.
In similar situations, what has happened, and what I am sure will happen again, is this:
1. A 'dragnet' would have been thrown or an area cordoned off by the police.
2. Approximately 26 youths could have been detained.
3. There would have been an initial interview (sometimes called interrogation) of each detainee to find out if any link could be made between him and the crime or if he could otherwise provide valuable information.
4. After about one week, a few lucky ones, it could be eight, with the help of their lawyers, their impoverished relatives' unrelenting visits to the stations, would break through the net.
Of course, for those who have now been released and those who remain in custody, the conditions of detention are often unspeakable:
Little or no contact with relatives.
A change of clothes allowed in once or twice per week (this is subject to change).
If you are lucky, food from home once or twice per week, to supplement the often unhygienic and insipid rations provided at the expense of the state.
Cold concrete to sleepon.
The constant stench of human faeces, urine and other unbearably foul odours.
Little or no lighting, day and night.
Poor ventilation.
Makeshift arrangements for sanitation and hygiene.
Overcrowding.
Constant fear of attacks from fellow detainees, as the degrading and dehumanising conditions bring out the best of the beast.
Then there are the lawyer's visits for the lucky ones. If the lawyer is sufficiently insistent, or senior, or with enough prestige, or if the police are just not too darned tired, the lawyer-client interview will take place in a private room with the police at the door. This is the way it ought to go. However, a few months ago when I last interviewed a young man at the Hunts Bay Police Station lock-up, it was in a passage inside the cell block. I conferred with my client in semi-darkness, engulfed in a mind-dulling and gut-wrenching stench, the temperature in excess of 900F degrees. My client, a detainee not charged with any crime, throughout the interview was standing but bent over from waist down, as he tried to adjust himself to the fact that one hand was handcuffed to the wall and to try to secure a little privacy so that the policemen, another visiting lawyer and a detainee would not hear everything he said to me. I escaped as soon as it was professionally decent for me to do. I left him there.
Detainees
So you are one of the five detainees to have been kept back, and after a time you and perhaps one or two of the others are charged. There is a ray of hope. You have a lawyer and you are entitled to and will finally get bail. Not so. 'Investigations are still not completed', 'this is a serious crime' and you 'have no fixed address'. Of course, life in a 'big lane', existing outside of the formal economy, is not the best basis for establishing that you have fixed ties and can be easily found (a proper consideration before you can be granted bail).
Having been charged, you can spend six months, one year and sometimes more, before your trial starts or you get bail. The conditions are enough to make you physically ill, crush your spirit, destroy your will to fight and break your heart. Even if you are able to partake of some of the ganja smuggled in, it may make you more compliant, but not one bit more hopeful.
Charged
Alas, not all investigations are as speedy as that into the death of Bob Woolmer and you, one of the two or three charged, may have to wait up to five years to hear that your 'victim's' death was due to natural causes or that otherwise, there is not enough evidence against you. On that final day in court, when you are ultimately vindicated, you could not even understand what the judge said; you are ganja-comatose, or just too shell-shocked, or simply too battle-weary. It begins to sink in later when it is explained to you by your lawyer or a kind policeman who processes you on your way out, with a stern warning not to do 'it' again.
Not all cases go this way, but too many of them do. The sad part is that there are hundreds of angry youth out there who have been treated this way by the police and justice system. They won't sue the state for compensation. Their sense of worth is already shattered, their belief in the justice system has been completely eroded, they don't believe they can afford the economic luxury of pursuing their rights (even the bus fare to the lawyer's office is hard to come by).
Unfortunately, that is not the end of it for them or you or for me. The phrase 'children live what they learn' is equally applicable to adults and so, but for the grace of God, go you and I. Beware of the danger these devalued human beings pose. Keep your car windows tightly wound up, bar all of your windows and doors at home, get electronic security if you can. Do all of those wise things but, in the meantime, we fool ourselves if we do not understand that fundamental and long-term solutions are needed.
There is a Justice Reform Task Force that is currently deliberating to make recommendations for the overhaul of the justice system. To my mind, it provides a golden opportunity for us to get the conversation going. "Which way, Jamaica?" We should not squander this chance. We must endeavour to use it to give voice to those who have been rendered speechless, dumbstruck by the institutionalised alienation, poverty and hopelessness. Their voices must be heard too, even if we have to be their ventriloquists. Be silent and we perish and our experiment at nationhood ultimately fails, in this we all have a paradoxical but common interest.
Jacqueline Samuels-Brown is an attorney-at-law.
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