Judge-alone trials may not work in Barbados, according to Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Alliston Seale who expressed strong reservations about the concept being effective in its current form.
Speaking at a conference at the UWI Sagicor Cave Hill School of Business, Seale argued that an accused person would always stand a better chance of acquittal before a jury than a judge, and would likely prefer that option.
“It gives the accused man a better fighting chance,” Seale said. “I’m gonna give you a classic example. One time an accused man went before the court and told a jury he had a gun but not that rusty gun the police brought; he had a brand new gun and the jury let him off. You really feel you could tell a judge some of the foolishness that accused people tell juries and get off?”
Seale’s comments come as lawmakers consider the Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Bill. The bill includes provisions that would allow defendants to choose between judge-alone trials or jury trials in cases where they plead not guilty. Judges will be required to inform defendants, particularly those without legal representation, of their right to seek legal advice on the option of a judge-alone trial. In cases where co-defendants are involved, all must agree on the same mode of trial.
The deputy chief prosecutor suggested that jury trials allow defendants to appeal to human emotions in ways that would not be possible in judge-alone trials. He highlighted the public’s often negative perceptions of the police as a potential advantage for accused persons facing a jury.
Seale said: “A jury is something that you can tinker with; it’s about emotion. ‘It is about me getting a report this morning and I vex with the police and I come to court and I sit on the jury and I don’t care about nothing the police does.
“’My friends or my family had a bad interaction with the police and I don’t like them.’ The relationships with the police, sometimes it could be better, that’s the truth, but the relationships with the police are generally unfavourable. So when they get vex, they take it out in the courtroom.”
He was adamant that most defendants would avoid judge-alone trials, arguing that the strategies employed in front of a jury would not work in a bench trial.
“Accused people will not choose a judge alone; the stories that you can push with the jury you can obviously not push before a judge alone. So I am waiting to see the result. I wanna be proven wrong but I believe . . . it’s not going to work,” he said.
Some of the island’s leading attorneys have voiced support for judge-alone trials in specific cases, particularly where complex legal matters are at play. They argue that such trials could expedite proceedings and lead to more efficient case management. However, they emphasised that the accused must retain the right to choose between a jury trial and a judge-alone trial.
Seale suggested that for judge-alone trials to succeed, the government would need to make them mandatory rather than optional.
“If they give them an option, I guarantee you that very few people will choose a judge alone when you have a jury that you can bamboozle,” he remarked.
sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb
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