Mom in jail for a year not knowing length of her sentence

Angela Joseph, a  mother of four convicted of trafficking in cocaine has been in jail for about a year now not knowing the length of her sentence. She will further have to wait until an application by the State to confiscated property(ies) allegedly belonging to her is heard and determined by a High Court judge  before her sentence, sealed by a magistrate, is made known.

Even though the application for confiscation came up before Justice Melville Baird yesterday, the duration on her sentence was not revealed. Attorney Keith Scotland explained to Baird that he and Israel Khan SC appeared for Joseph, but because of Khan’s  illness he could not be present in court. However, Scotland, informed the Port-of-Spain First Criminal Court that he was instructed by Khan to proceed with the matter because Khan was concerned about the incarceration of his client and out of respect for the court which had set aside “today” to deal with the matter. Joseph was convicted of trafficking in 560 milligrammes of cocaine before Magistrate Deborah Thomas Felix on November 2, 2002. The magistrate was informed that there was an application for confiscation. It is the law that the an application for confiscation must be heard before a High Court judge and not a magistrate.

In light of this, the judge must first hear and determine the confiscation order before sentence is made known to the prisoner. Therefore, Thomas-Felix  sealed her order of sentence and sent it to the High Court via the Registrar. The matter first came up before Justice Herbert Volney on June 16, 2003 and was adjourned on about three occasions. At yesterday’s hearing, State attorney  Eileen Green and Scotland made preliminary submissions before Baird.  The judge wanted to know whether he was the competent person to hear the matter since it was initially before another judge. The judge stood the matter down until about 12.30 pm  to consider the submissions. On resumption, he indicated that because this matter was the first of its kind in the jurisdiction, he would need to hear further arguments from attorneys. The matter was eventually adjourned to tomorrow. Scotland also made an application for an extension of time to file fresh statements. Green objected to the application.