… But Jamaican Evidence Act can increase convictions

But there is one way in which prosecutors may be able to successfully present a case without depending solely on fearful or embarrassed witnesses to appear in court. Branker-Taitt points to a section of the Jamaican Evidence Act and hopes that it can be applied in Belize to help get convictions.

Cheryl-Lynn Branker-Taitt, D.P.P.
“There is something that we’re looking at, at the office. There is a provision in our Evidence Act that enables statements to be tendered into evidence where the witnesses are dead or absent or too ill to be able to attend court. In Jamaica the Evidence Act also includes where a person is kept away from the proceedings because of threats and there’s no way that you can safeguard the witness. It seems like a strange provision and I understand that judges shy away from allowing statements into evidence in Jamaica under that section, but it has been done in the past successfully. There’s a Privy Council case – Smith against the Queen in which a conviction was upheld by the Privy Council based on a statement that was tendered into evidence from a person who said that he was afraid to testify and did not appear at trial.”

Marion Ali
“How difficult would it be for you to adapt that successfully here for better convictions – for a higher percentage at least of convictions?”

Cheryl-Lynn Branker-Taitt
“We are going to propose that the Evidence Act be amended to include that circumstance because we think that something has to be done and we have very few options available to us. We are still doing research and considering all the possibilities in relation to the legislation but we are going to propose that it be adopted and we will have to wait to see how successful it will be at the end of the day. But we are in a situation where something has to be done so we have to try what is available to us.”

In those instances where cases are thrown out because witnesses are unable to testify for different reasons, such as the recent Brannon brothers murder trial when the key witness was ill, the D.P.P.’s office can also bring back those matters when the witnesses are available.