The nation’s chief prosecutor was called before the Appeal Court because she dared to challenge a foolish decision that may have allowed yet another murderer to go unpunished for his crime.
The prosecutor was attempting to seek justice for the victim’s family and the people of the Bahamas, but in doing so she bruised the big egos of the Appeal Court judges.
After the Appeal Court foolishly reduced a brutal murderer’s charge to manslaughter, Vinette Graham-Allen, the Director of Public Prosecutions, appeared before the court on an “urgent” application for leave to have the Privy Council give a ruling on the matter. Specifically Graham-Allen was challenging the Appeal Court’s decision that the murderer didn’t really mean to murder the victim.
The case revolves around an armed robbery that occurred at the Quality Discount Mart back in 2009. Godfrey Sawyer was just finishing his armed robbery of the store when the unarmed security guard attempted to stop him. In the fight that ensued, the security guard was shot and killed.
Sawyer admits robbing the store with a gun, and admits the brawl with the security guard, but says the gun went off “accidentally”.
The Appeal Court judges say that’s good enough for them. Mr Sawyer said he didn’t mean to kill the guard. The word of an armed robber, out to save his own skin, convinced the Appeal Court judges to reduce the charge from murder to manslaughter.
Ms Graham-Allen, doing her job and under instruction from Attorney General John Delaney, saw the folly of the court’s decision and wanted to immediately take the decision to the Privy Council to rule on the matter of intent.
That process is normally supposed to take place after the Appeal Court judges issue their written ruling. But given the number of delays in the case already, and knowing that judges in the Bahamas take way too long to issue written rulings, if they issue them at all, the prosecutors sought to expedite the matter.
What really happened is, the Appeal Court judges’ egos were bruised because Ms Graham-Allen dared to question their decision. So, relying on an obscure point of law, they publicly castigated her and demanded that she appear before them to explain why she “misled” the court by saying the request to go before the Privy Council was urgent.
Well, Ms Graham-Allen appeared before the court yesterday and told the judges that she thought the matter was urgent. After all, with an all-time high in the number of murders in the Bahamas, and with the main reason that murderers get off being the length of time it takes to resolve the cases in court, Ms Graham-Allen and Mr Delaney wanted to have the Appeal Court’s foolish decision examined by the Privy Council, so they could charge Mr Sawyer for murder, which is as it should be.
The Appeal Court judges ended up ruling yesterday that the matter could go before the Privy Council, but they did so only after scolding Ms Graham-Allen, saying she should have waited for their written decision before filing such an appeal.
And you wonder why there is a backlog of 40,000 cases?
