Lessons from the trial of di Teacha Kartel

By Devon Dick

Today, Adidja Palmer, better known as Vybz Kartel and Di Teacha, should hear what the sentence is for the conviction of murdering his former associate Clive 'Lizard' Williams. There are many lessons from the trial of di Teacher Kartel.

There are many who were of the opinion that the jury in the Kartel trial would not return a guilty verdict, convicting Kartel, even though in their opinion he was guilty. The jury proved them wrong. Kartel was convicted in a short time.

There is the stereotyping of jurors as corrupt, fearful and incompetent, so much so that many would want to do away with the jury system. However, an examination of the conviction rate by juries of murder cases is reasonably high and low in cases associated with members of the police force only.

People forget that, in 2006, a jury convicted Matthews Lane don, Donald 'Zeeks' Phipps of double murder in the Home Circuit Court and Justice Horace Marsh sentenced him to life imprisonment and ordered that he must serve 30 years' imprisonment before becoming eligible for parole.

Phipps filed several grounds of appeal, one of which was that the verdict of the jury could not be supported by the evidence and he also complained about the judge's summation on the issue of voice recognition. Nevertheless, the Privy Council dismissed his appeal. Generally speaking, ordinary Jamaicans as jurors are smart, brave and honest.

It is time for jurors to be treated better. They should not be accessible to the public and should be placed in comfortable surroundings during the trial. In addition, the stipend needs to be increased significantly to offset some of the loss of income even as they do their civic duty.

competent lawyers

Another lesson from the trial is that there are competent lawyers working in government services. It is not true that the great lawyers are those in private practice with a high profile and who come at a high price. The competence of the prosecutors was also on display in the Zeeks and Kartel trials.

Furthermore, there are good police doing excellent investigative work. Zeeks was convicted of the murder of Dayton Williams and Leroy Farquharson, whose burnt bodies with multiple gunshot wounds were found in Rose Town. Unfortunately, the body of Clive 'Lizard' Williams was not found, but a conviction was won. Our local investigators are competent and can get the job done. A former member of the Police High Command told me that when Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe remarked that a case before the court was the worst example of investigative work he had seen, it was one done by a foreign policeman. Let us weed out corrupt cops and used those excellent ones to do the investigative work.

It appears that Kartel was arrogant, as some claim that he writes about his activities in his songs. In fact, on the Nationwide newscast with anchor Abra Fitz Henley there was a clip of a song which spoke to 'fine, fine, fine'. In Nuh War Wid Knife he states,

Coppa chop chop him up like chicken a best dress

Jus a likkle bloody neck lef wid a necklace'

There are other gangster songs including Born Bad and one which proclaimed how the jury and magistrate would set him free. His lyrics failed him.

Some of Kartel's song are funny and fun to dance to. However, many songs are lewd, explicit and degrade and objectify women as good for sex only, and there are other songs which describe, promote and glamourise murder. This explains his downfall.

Those who have ears to hear, better learn.

Rev Devon Dick is pastor of the Boulevard Baptist Church in St Andrew. He is author of 'The Cross and the Machete', and 'Rebellion to Riot'. Send feedback to columns@ gleanerjm.com.