Vybz Kartel Wins Privy Council Appeal To Overturn Conviction

Local Jamaican court will now decide on retrial or total dismissal of case against the dancehall artist

The United Kingdom Privy Council has ruled that the conviction of Vybz Kartel and his co-appellants Shawn “Shawn Storm” Campbell, Kahira Jones, and Andre St John should be quashed. The matter has been remitted to the court of appeal for a decision on whether there will be a retrial.

Fans of Vybz Kartel, real name Adidja Palmer, are anxious to know what the judgment means after the Privy Council handed down its judgment in favor of the dancehall star and his co-appellants, agreeing that several of their constitutional rights were breached.

As of now, Vybz Kartel will remain in jail until his attorney makes an application for bail pending the retrial. Whether the appellants will be re-tried will also depend on the court’s decision on whether the trial is feasible after ten years.

The judgment was read by the Hon. Lord Lloyd-Jones, who read out a summary of the reasons for the panel’s decision.

“The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council has unanimously agreed that the appeals should be allowed and the appellant’s convictions quashed on the ground of juror misconduct and that the case be remitted to the Court of Appeal Jamaica to order a retrial of the appellants for the murder of Clive Williams,” the judge said.

The Board, he said, also acknowledged the dilemma faced by trial judge Lennox Campbell, who adjudged a long and complex trial but explained that the Privy Council decision was weighed heavily by how matters as to the jury were dealt with.

‘Following allegations of bribery, he had either to continue with the 11 remaining jurors or to discharge the jury. Despite this, the Board considers that the approach taken by that judge was a material irregularity in the course of the trial, which makes it necessary to quash the convictions. This is for three reasons: first, the direction to the jury on the final day was inadequate to say the judge simply reminded the jury that they had sworn or affirmed they would return verdicts in accordance with the evidence they heard in court. The judge did not refer to the alleged bribery, of which, if the allegations were true, the jurors were already aware,” Lord Loyd-Jones said.

He continued, “Secondly, the trial continued with the corrupt juror serving as one of its 11 members. In the Board’s view, there should have been no question of allowing juror X to continue serving on the jury. Allowing juror X to continue on the jury is fatal to the conviction which followed. It was an infringement of the appellant’s fundamental rights to a fair hearing and the Jamaican constitution. Thirdly, the judge should have considered whether the remaining jurors might have become consciously and unconsciously prejudiced for or against one or more of the appellants as a result of Juror X’s behavior. For example, there is a danger that the attempted bribe could have made the other jurors overcompensated consciously or unconsciously if they assumed the offer must have come from one of the appellants and, therefore, they must be guilty. The judge took no account of this risk.”

According to Lloyd-Jones J, the “Board is very mindful of the serious consequences of having to discharge a jury shortly before the end of a long and complex trial. It is also very conscious of the deliberate attempts to derail criminal trials by engineering situations in which it is necessary to discharge a jury.”

He also pointed out that the judge faced an insurmountable task given that Jamaica needs legislation to deal with jury matters such as this case, unlike England and Wales. As for the other grounds of appeal, the Privy Council said it was not necessary to hold a concluded view.

The Appellants Adidja Palmer, otherwise called Vybz Kartel, Shawn Campbell, also named Shawn Storm, Andre St. John, and Kahira Jones, brought their appeal to the Privy Council almost ten years after they were first convicted in 2014.

They were convicted for the murder of Clive Williams on August 16, 2011, for allegedly failing to return two unlicensed firearms to Kartel. The guns were given to Williams reportedly for “safekeeping”.

The high-profile trial was mired by controversy with reports of a juror attempting to bribe the forewoman and others.

The juror who offered $500,000 to the forewoman, Livingston Caine, was arrested and charged, and last year, he was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment at hard labor for the offense.