Judge throws out immunity evidence

THREE MEN were yesterday freed of murder after the trial judge, in the first case of its kind, threw out the testimony of the accomplice witness who had been granted immunity from prosecution by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). Nigel Matthews, Martin Layne, and Grafton Surzano were before Justice Herbert Volney in the Port-of-Spain First Criminal Court charged with the murder of Mervyn Wright outside Ultra Care Pharmacy, Diego Martin Main Road, Diego Martin, on June 3, 2000. The prosecution depended on the evidence of Kerry Joseph, an accomplice witness who was granted immunity from prosecution. But before Joseph could have given his evidence, the defence objected and submissions were made in the absence of the jury. Yesterday, Justice Volney ruled in favour of the defence. This caused the prosecutor Althea Alexis to ask for a short adjournment to take instructions.
 
When the case resumed, Alexis informed the court that based on the ruling of the court, there was no evidence against the three accused on a charge of murder. She said the rest of the evidence was so tenuous, and therefore based on instructions she had received, she was formally offering no evidence against the accused. But Alexis said there was evidence to indict the three accused for robbery with aggravation. In discharging the accused, Justice Volney said his ruling did not cover all immunity cases. “My ruling is based on the particular facts of this case where the immunity was granted clearly to the principal in order that the prosecution might prosecute secondary parties who played a minor role in the commission of whatever crime.” Justice Volney discharged the accused on the charge of murder. He then read the robbery charge and said bail was fixed for each accused in the sum of $30,000 with a surety. State attorney Angelica Teelucksingh assisted Alexis. Ryan Cameron appeared for Matthews; Larry Lalla for Layne, and Devan Rampersad and Aden Stroude for Surzano.

In a seven-page judgment, Justice Volney said the granting of immunity from prosecution to a principal offender in order to link secondary parties to the commission of the crime was repugnant to public policy considerations inherent in the administration of criminal justice. He said there can be no doubt that a trial judge sitting with a jury in a criminal case was clothed with an inherent jurisdiction to safeguard the fair trial by exercising a discretion to disallow even evidence that otherwise qualifies for admission. “In this regard, the exercise by the Director of Public Prosecutions of its prerogative to grant immunity in exchange for the evidence of Kerry Joseph in terms of his notarized statement is to forego prosecution of the principal in order to link considerably less-involved secondary parties in the commission of the crime. “To permit of this course would, in my judgment, compromise the administration of criminal justice and allow a witness not sanitised, of a powerful and overwhelming inducement to ingratiate himself at the inevitable expense of other less-involved confederates in the execution of a joint enterprise,” the judge added. Justice Volney said in the interest of justice, he was excluding Joseph’s evidence from the trial. Wright was shot dead when he and his son went to the Ultra Care Pharmacy to purchase pampers.