{"id":34197,"date":"2013-04-10T21:36:27","date_gmt":"2013-04-11T01:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=34197"},"modified":"2013-04-10T21:36:27","modified_gmt":"2013-04-11T01:36:27","slug":"prosecutors-fight-bid-to-stop-murder-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2013\/04\/prosecutors-fight-bid-to-stop-murder-case","title":{"rendered":"Prosecutors Fight Bid To Stop Murder Case"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Accused murder Kofhe Goodman made \u201cscandalous\u201d allegations against National Security Minister Dr. Bernard Nottage in an affidavit in support of an application to stop his trial.<\/p>\n

Goodman, who is also known as Edwardo Ferguson, is accused of the September 2011 murder of 11-year-old Marco Archer.<\/p>\n

Goodman\u2019s lawyer, Geoffrey Farquharson, has alleged that pretrial publicity and public commentary about the case have made it impossible for Goodman to receive a fair trial.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Neil Brathwaite yesterday asked Justice Bernard Turner to strike out the affidavit because it contained \u201cscandalous\u201d and \u201cirrelevant\u201d material.<\/p>\n

In his preliminary objection, Brathwaite said the affidavit in support of the application for a stay was rife with \u201cinadmissible opinion\u201d and the assertions were framed in a \u201cscandalous manner\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cHaving regard to the contents of the affidavit, which has been sworn and filed in the matter; the inadmissibility of what is contained therein; the scandalous nature of what is contained therein; we say the affidavit should be struck out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The deponent, Goodman, characterized Nottage as a \u201cdemagogue\u201d who deliberately made remarks about establishing Marco\u2019s Law, which would establish a sex offender\u2019s registry and change the way police dealt with reports of missing children.<\/p>\n

As Brathwaite referred to paragraph 56 of the 76 paragraph affidavit, Turner asked if the minister was being accused of a criminal offense.<\/p>\n

Brathwaite said the allegation of criminal behavior against the minister was repeated elsewhere in the affidavit.<\/p>\n

The judge intervened and asked Farquharson if he was seeking to prove his point by himself making \u201cinflammatory statements\u201d.<\/p>\n

Farquharson said that Nottage was well aware that there was no evidence that Marco had been abducted or sexually assaulted.<\/p>\n

Farquharson said there were \u201chundreds of thousands of examples\u201d of prejudicial and lurid statements made about the case, but he had only presented a sample of the
\noffending remarks.<\/p>\n

Some of those examples contained comments by newspaper readers calling for Goodman to be killed. Goodman\u2019s trial was supposed to begin on April 8.<\/p>\n

However, Farquharson raised the potential prejudicial effect of media coverage during a case management hearing on March 27.<\/p>\n

The day before, Nottage renewed his pledge to establish Marco\u2019s Law at a seminar for the Protection of Children.<\/p>\n

Farquharson was supposed to deliver his documents in support of the application by noon on Monday. However, the documents were not handed over until yesterday.<\/p>\n

Farquharson noted that the Crown and the court did not have enough time to study his submissions.<\/p>\n

Turner will rule on the request to strike out the application on Thursday. The jury pool has been asked to return on Monday.<\/p>\n

Garvin Gaskin, the deputy director of public prosecutions, and Darell Taylor also appeared in the case.<\/p>\n

By Artesia Davis<\/span><\/em>
\nGuardian Senior Reporter<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kofhe Goodman, also known as Edwardo Ferguson, is accused of the September 2011 murder of 11-year-old Marco Archer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[151,173,226],"class_list":["post-34197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-court","tag-injustice","tag-murder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}