Judge orders release of six wrongly imprisoned men

JUSTICE Peter Jamadar yesterday ordered that six prisoners be immediately released after he found that they were illegally serving extra time in prison.

One of the prisoners, David Pysadee, of Preysal, had been jailed for four extra years. The orders were made on six Habeas Corpus motions in the First Civil Court, San Fernando, filed and argued by attorneys Prakash Ramadhar and Brian Debideen.

The attorneys successfully argued that magistrates ordered the six prisoners to serve separate jail terms to run consecutively. But the various aggregate jail terms in the case of each of the six prisoners totalled more than the maximum jail sentence which the law imposed. Pysadee was convicted on four counts of robbery and sentenced to two years imprisonment on each count — a total of eight years imprisonment. The sentences were ordered to run consecutively. But consecutive sentences, the attorneys argued, cannot exceed three years. They cited a ruling  on the issue by former Chief Justice Michael de la Bastide, who referred to Section 77 of the Summary Courts Ordinance.

It states: “Where two or more sentences are passed by a magistrate by a summary court and are ordered to run consecutively, the aggregate term of imprisonment shall not exceed three years.” Pysadee, therefore, should have served only two years and should have been released from jail in July 1998.

Justice Jamadar, in granting an order of habeas corpus for the immediate release of Pysadee ruled that the magistrate had no power to order consecutive sentences where the aggregate term of imprisonment exceeded three years.  The other prisoner who was found to have suffered a similar fate was Marlon Charles of La Horquetta. He was sentenced to six jail terms of two years each for house-breaking. The sentences were to run consecutively — 12 years total.  According to Justice Jamadar’s order, the consecutive sentences imposed on Charles cannot exceed three years. He too was ordered released. On similar grounds, Justice Jamadar ordered the release of four other men — Maurice Haynes of Morvant; Steve Yorke of Chaguanas; Edwin Augustine of Port-of- Spain and Garvin Taylor of Laventille. Their extra time in prison ranged from three months to one year.