Today in the Supreme Court of Justice Adolph Lucas, the fate of three men charged with the murder of a once notorious street figure, Herman “Yaga” Morris, rested on a single key witness.
In court, however, the witness recanted her testimony, claiming that she could not recall making statements, and could not recall the events surrounding Morris’ murder.
With lack of evidence and no key witness, the Department of Public Prosecutions made an application to the court for the witness to be viewed as a hostile witness; by law, if a witness is found to be a hostile witness, meaning that for no valid reason he or she refuses to recount the evidence she once gave to police, she could be imprisoned for a week.
“You are putting my life in danger,” the witness told the prosecution as she stood inside the witness box. The witness was later excused from the court proceedings.
Due to the lack of evidence and the lack of a witness, the court had no other option but to instruct the 12-member jury, consisting of six men and six women, to find all three accused not guilty of the charge of murder.
Giovanni Gentle, Marvin Cruz and Art Skeet were all jointly charged with Morris’ murder in 2008 and had been imprisoned since then. The court had to appoint representation for the accused prior to the start of the trial yesterday, Wednesday, January 18.
Attorney Darrell Bradley was appointed by the court to represent Skeet. Attorney Simeon Sampson was also court-appointed to represent Gentle and Cruz.
Bradley told us today after the not guilty verdict by the jury, “Yesterday [during the beginning of the trial], the prosecution was supposed to open their case and call their first witness, but the prosecution did a surprise move, which caught both the defense counsels by ambush entirely, because we were not given notice that they were going to apply to have the statement of the main witness, who was the only witness in this case that could provide any credible evidence, be read into evidence as opposed to her [the witness] reading it orally, so that she could be crossed-examined.
“The judge then sent the jury home and they had a hearing as to whether or not the prosecution council could do that, but at the end, the judge determined in favor of the defense that the witness had to come to court and give evidence.
“…I think it is very unconstitutional that we have a justice system that sees accused men who are presumed to be innocent, stay in jail for periods exceeding more than four years. It was very unfortunate that this was a legal aid case.”
According to information we researched on Morris’ murder, he was shot a total of three times, twice in the neck and once in the head on March 13, 2008, sometime after 11:00 p.m. as he was returning from a wake being held on Lakeview Street in the St. Martin De Porres area.
Morris was riding his bicycle through an alley when a total of eight gunshots were heard by residents in that area.
The three accused were later arrested and charged in 2008. Justice Lucas addressed all three accused, explaining that they were free to go and that the charge of murder against them had to be withdrawn due to the lack of evidence by the prosecution.
Only Gentle was free to go after a check cleared him of any further obligations to the court. Skeet and Cruz had pending obligations to the court and were remanded back to the Belize Central Prison until their matters were cleared up.