Police Prosecutors Participate in a Second Round of Training
Police officers attached to the National Prosecution Branch are participating in a three-day training course geared towards sharpening their skills in effectively pursuing criminal cases in court. Today at the Radisson, they paid keen attention to presentations made by attorneys and other facilitators. The goal is that police prosecutors will be successful against seasoned criminal lawyers where convictions are concerned. News Five’s Isani Cayetano reports.
Isani Cayetano, Reporting
The fundamentals of criminal prosecution are important for a law enforcement officer who is responsible for pursuing legal action against an individual who stands accused of committing an offense. More often than not, police prosecutors are heavily criticized for failing to secure convictions in criminal matters, for a number of reasons, including their knowledge of court procedures.
Sgt. Roman Andrews
Sgt. Roman Andrews, Prosecutor
“Being a prosecutor is always a learning experience, we never know everything and training always helps. There are some things that we believe we are doing right and only by us training constantly that we understand what is the practicable thing to do and what is the right thing and sometimes we get assistance from others to clarify doubts or to help us in situations where we might otherwise make mistakes.”
Teaching them the basics of putting together a case and presenting it before the court is attorney Darrell Bradley. The former Belize City mayor has made a name for himself as a competent lawyer. Today he is instructing a cohort of officers attached to the National Prosecution Branch. That department is headed by Senior Crown Counsel Alifah Elrington.
Alifah Elrington
Alifah Elrington, National Prosecution Branch
“The training is about advocacy, it’s about criminal procedure, concentrating this year on witness management in particular. Since coming into Prosecution Branch in 2019, I believed that there was need for better development and training of the prosecutors. My prosecutors are police prosecutors who go up every day in the magistrate’s court against trained attorneys, so I believe that they needed to build more confidence because I have several persons, several prosecutors who have been prosecuting for years.”
For the most part, those men and women in uniform have been doing so without proper training. In essence, what they have been doing is learning by trial and error. That informal tuition, in the context of a poor conviction rate, often comes at the expense of the victims or their loved ones. Nonetheless, the opportunity to acquire the right skills is to the advantage of officers who are interested in criminal prosecution.
PC Sherry Gongora
PC Sherry Gongora, Court Orderly
“I am hoping to be a prosecutor one day, with this training and what I already know, because me and the prosecutor I am presently working with, we work hand in hand. I would sit and we would talk about cases together and he would give me insight on why he did this or why he did that and that helps my knowledge a little.”
The idea is to train prosecutors on how to establish ironclad cases that are able to withstand intense scrutiny from the best criminal lawyers in the business.
Alifah Elrington
“I have said to them since I’ve been here, if you know your case, a Dickie Bradley, an Ellis Arnold, an OJ Elrington can’t come and poke holes in your case because as a good prosecutor, having looked at your case, you would have already identified the holes that a defense attorney could come and poke or come and try to dismantle your case. So what I say to them, achieving justice, for me, is not necessarily a conviction. IT is getting to the point where a court says to a defendant, “You have a case to answer, explain to me why, after what the prosecutor has presented, I shouldn’t convict you of the offense.”
Isani Cayetano for News Five.
