Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
CHIEF JUSTICE Lensley Wolfe yesterday turned down an application for a change of venue for the trial of the six policemen charged with the murder of seven young men in a house in Braeton, St. Catherine, on March 14, 2001.
The policemen's case was set for trial in the Home Circuit Court but they brought an application contending that they would not get a fair trial in the Corporate Area and St. Catherine because of widespread prejudicial publicity. They claimed that the prejudice was created by various civic, political and human rights groups. They were asking for a change of venue to Manchester or St. Elizabeth.
The Chief Justice noted that the publicity was widespread throughout the island. Also, he said the policemen did not satisfy him that there was the likelihood that they would not get a fair trial in Kingston and St. Andrew.
NO EVIDENCE FOR REMOVAL
Paula Llewellyn, Senior Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), and Sharon Barnes, Crown Counsel, who represented the Crown, had opposed the application for a change of venue. They argued that the policemen did not prove any evidential basis to establish that any prejudice which may have been, in any of the pre-trial publicity, was so widespread and so "indelibly impressed" on the minds of potential jurors in Kingston and St. Andrew and St. Catherine, that it was unlikely that an unbiased jury could not be obtained. The prosecutors referred to the fact that a Coroner's Inquest was held into the matter and the jury which was drawn from the parish of St. Catherine had found that no one was criminally responsible for the deaths of the seven occupants in the house.
The policemen last appeared in the Home Circuit Court on May 7 and had their bail extended to return to court on May 28.
They are Sergeant Raymond Miller, Constables Leighton Bucknor, Miguel Ebanks, Devon Bernard and Corporals Wayne Constantine and Limroy Edwards.
The DPP ruled in January this year that the policemen should be charged with the murders of Christopher Grant, Andre Virgo, Lancebert Clarke, Curtis Smith, Dane Whyte, Tamoya Wilson and Regan Beckford, arising from a controversial shooting on March 14, 2001.
