Judge orders retrial of Rudolph Smith

In other court news, a retrial has been ordered for postman, forty-seven year old Rudolph Smith, a man charged with Causing Death by Careless Conduct. This evening the jury of six women and three men deliberated for almost three hours and were unable to reach a verdict in the court of Justice Herbert Lord. Smith was charged in connection with the death of sixty-nine year old Saturnino Sosa, who was knocked off his bicycle by a post office van around five on February twentieth, 2007 between miles nine and ten on the Northern Highway.

Sosa was flung into the air and seven of his ribs were broken on impact. He also broke on his neck when he landed on the ground and the base of his skull was completely severed from the bones of his neck. Sosa was riding towards Belize City and the van was also heading to the city. The prosecution, represented by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Cheryl Lyn Branker-Taitt, called six witnesses to testify, but none saw the incident. Smith, who was represented by attorney Dickie Bradley, gave a statement from the dock in which he said he was driving when a person on the right side of the highway appeared in front of his vehicle. A voire dire was held to determine if the statement Smith gave to the police should be admitted as evidence and Justice Lord ruled that the statement was inadmissible because the police officer who took the statement violated the judges’ rules. After the prosecution closed its case, Bradley made a no-case submission but it was not upheld.