Constable charged, but C.J. lashes Police Commissioner

Police constable Jesus Maroquin was formally charged with murder this morning for the 2002 shooting of Egbert Gordon Jr., the mentally ill man who had barricaded himself in an unoccupied house at the Los Lagos subdivision. But while the arraignment was proceeding in front of Magistrate Dorothy Flowers, next door at the Supreme Court Chief Justice Abdulai Conteh was acting on a related matter of far reaching consequences. As we reported in yesterday’s newscast, Gordon’s family had filed a motion seeking a writ of mandamus and judicial review of the Police Commissioner’s failure to act on the Director of Public Prosecutions’ instructions that the police charge Maroquin with murder. And while that motion, set for argument this morning, was indeed rendered moot and withdrawn by Attorney Antoinette Moore, Chief Justice Conteh was unrelenting in his condemnation of the Commissioner Gerald Westby’s failure to act on the D.P.P.’s November tenth directive. Noting that the pending Supreme Court action was the only reason that Maroquin was finally charged, the C.J. went on to emphatically remark: “I was astounded that a directive had been ignored for a month.” “I have nothing from the Commissioner of Police to excuse the extreme tardiness and dereliction of duty.” “I find the action of the (Commissioner and government) … inexcusable.” “It is not the business of any other authority to second guess the D.P.P.” And finally, “I hope an application of this kind will never see the light of day again.” With his opinion made abundantly clear, the Chief Justice awarded legal costs to the Gordons in the amount of five hundred dollars.