New trial date looms in Keith Clarke murder case
Published:Wednesday | January 18, 2023 | 1:39 AM
A new trial date is to be fixed for the resumption of the hearing for the three Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) soldiers accused of the 2010 shooting death of businessman Keith Clarke.
The date is to be decided on February 21 in the Home Circuit Court when the case-management hearing continues.
The matter, which had been stalled since April 2018, was placed back on the trial list following a Court of Appeal ruling last Friday sanctioning the trial.
Justice Vinette Graham-Allen, who presided over a case-management hearing Tuesday, has emphasised that the trial is a priority matter.
The defence lawyers have also indicated that their clients are anxious for the matter to be tried.
Both parties have been ordered to engage in discussions to determine what statements, if any, will be agreed.
The defence is also to advise the prosecution if there are any materials or statements outstanding, while the prosecution is to ascertain the availability of its witnesses for the trial
Corporal Odel Buckley, Lance Corporal Greg Tinglin, and Private Arnold Henry were arrested and charged with murder after the businessman was shot 21 times inside his Kirkland Heights home in St Andrew on July 27 during a military operation.
The defendants’ bail was extended.
Jury selection was forced to a halt in August 2018 after defence lawyers surprised the Crown with certificates of immunity which they claimed shielded the trio from prosecution.
The certificates of immunity were signed in 2016 by then Minister of National Security Peter Bunting, six years after Clarke’s death.
Clarke’s widow, Claudette, then challenged the validity of the certificates.
The Constitutional Court ruled in February 2020 that the immunity certificates were invalid, null, and void and that the soldiers should stand trial.
The soldiers sought to have the decision quashed by the Court of Appeal. But the nation’s second-highest court struck down the Constitutional Court ruling regarding the certificates but affirmed the decision that the soldiers should be tried.
The appeal court, however, ruled that a voir dire, or a trial within the trial, must be conducted by a judge alone to determine whether the director of public prosecutions can rebut the certificates of good faith issued by the minister.
The appeal court judges also ruled that the Full Court erred in determining that the delay in issuing the certificates was manifestly unfair and unreasonable, and that, as a result, the soldiers should not be allowed to rely on them.
“Arising from these determinations, we have concluded that it is not necessary in this case that the certificates be challenged by way of judicial review but rather, in the circumstances, that a preliminary determination be made by a judge of the Supreme Court sitting without a jury,” they explained.
The soldiers had reportedly gone in search of Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, the now-convicted Jamaican drug lord who is in a United States prison, when Clarke was killed.
Coke was the target of an islandwide manhunt after escaping a security dragnet inside his west Kingston enclave of Tivoli Gardens.
King’s Counsel Peter Champagnie represents Buckley, King’s Counsel Valerie Neita-Robertson appears for Tingling, and attorney-at-law Linton Gordon represents Henry.