by Colin Hyde
This Mr. Diki Bradley, he is determined in his attacks, and the AG absolutely just can’t lie back and let him have his way; the AG must step up and defend the people. Ayayai, it seems like every inning that Bradley man is at the plate, to heck with the batting order. He is beloved by those of us accused of violent crimes because he bats against murder trial by judge. He bats against foreign magistrates, which could win him the hearts of local magistrates. In his latest daring assault, he, as leader of the defense attorney group, is batting for higher pay for prosecutors, the people who prepare cases against the clients of him and his crowd.
Ehm, looking at our prosecutors, really, what have they done that they can be asking for more pay? Diki and the defense attorneys are beating them left, right and center in the cases. I thought we lived in a capitalist system, merit-based, Braa. I’ve never heard of “losers” demanding more pay from their bosses. Ahem, they should be begging to keep their jobs! I see why AG Marin-Young absconded. Her poor nerves must have been frazzled thin with prosecutors who don’t know how the world works. Deliver the victories, man, and then you can make demands. Win a few cases, and even if we don’t have the money we’ll scramble to find it and pay you.
Local magistrates can well defend themselves. They went to the same school Bradley and his friends attended. Prosecutors can defend themselves. They went to the same school Bradley and his friends attended.
Holding di light on trial by judge, everyone knows that this type of trial came about when lawyers came under deadly physical attack. Thankfully, that decision happens to serve the people too. Belizeans know the jury thing can’t work, because jurors are drawn from regular folk who ride buses and bicycles and walk from home to work, and those of us who fall into criminality have become emboldened since human rights trumped justice in our country. The work of defense attorneys, it’s so easy in trials with intimidated jurors.
Our AG can’t stop the magistrates and prosecutors from liking Bradley and his crowd, but we should be damned well disappointed if he turned a blind eye to the courting, if he didn’t mind them liking him. See the prosecutors who win money prizes after Bradley and the defense attorneys’ brazen soliciting on their behalf—hear them: nice Diki, humorous Diki; and all the while Diki is piling up victories for people accused of crimes against the state, and Diki becoming more in demand, and Diki commanding more pay for his brilliant work, and, and Diki catching the eye of the filthy rich Ashcroft who is always on the lookout for pompous lawyers to befriend.
You have to call this man out, AG. We had a woman AG, and he couldn’t get the best of her. Well, don’t let him get the better of you. Hey, the job is hard enough for our justice system without defense attorneys looking to increase their advantage with this shameless cozying up to magistrates and prosecutors. Please don’t accept any professional ethics bull from them, any claim that that insulates prosecutors and magistrates from being influenced. That is theory, not practice. Human beings are human beings everywhere. We’re not living in a movie. Only in movies do a wife and husband go to court and cold-bloodedly argue different sides of a case.
Nobody is questioning lawyers fraternizing at night. Accepted, these lawyers are intellectually superior to us, far better educated than the rest of us, oftentimes involved in matters too high for the rest of us to grasp, so it is understandable that they would want company that can stimulate their cerebral side. They are only human. My, a couple minutes with rank and file we, and they’d be bored sick. But we have to draw the line.
This public courtship, this man, with his completely dishonorable tactics, he is stealing the girl right in front of our face, AG. Are Bradley and the defense attorneys trying to sell that they’re all working for justice in this land? Somebody please go and see what’s dropping behind that bull. Stop play di fool; the story of the score is that sharing information is only to the advantage of the defense. If we go by the score, either our police and prosecution are incompetent, and/or they are corrupt. Until we change the system, we cannot encourage this palipali business. This fraternity, we might ignore it if the prosecution branch wasn’t losing all the cases. It’s just so rotten.
After being had for decades, we know the deal. The more clients that defense attorneys get off, the bigger heroes they become, and bigger heroes command bigger pay. They are about bank. If anyone is to question the number of foreign magistrates being hired, it is us, the people who are not defense attorneys, and if anyone should champion higher pay for prosecutors, it is us, the people who hire them to kick defense lawyers’ butts in court.
Belize is waiting for the glorious day when a defense attorney breaks ranks, comes out and tells us about all the dirty work they do, how they play at god with the system. What a pity Caroline Trench Sandiford balked when she saw the criminality of the defense, instead of marching into hell for a heavenly cause. She would have ended the fraud.
Triki position, but wi got yu back, AG
The AG might be in a tricky position re: this absolutely upstart letter Shyne Barrow sent to the Speaker. The author of the disrespectful letter said, effectively, that the Speaker has no protection outside of the House. Yap, he has to watch his words to her when he is in the House, but if he meets her on the streets, he can kos the stuffings out of the lady.
The AG has to know that he will get full support if there isn’t anything written in our law to deal with unruly behavior. Bah, once again the Barrows found a loophole to do the most untoward things. There was no law stopping Dean Barrow from putting his son at the head of BTL. Everyone an dehn grani knew that was wrong, wrong, wrong, and that it would cost this nation dearly when the human judges ruled in the BTL case, but there was no law stopping it. This 11th amendment, nobody of regular mind would have thought that such a law was needed. Nobody, nobody would have contemplated that a mind would come along and make it necessary to spell out in bold the basic standards for leadership.
Orange economy
I have Mista Peetaz on CD, and I can play him on my laptop, so I am not absolutely starving for brokdong, but I play music mostly off my phone, and the way to get his music in my playlists is to purchase it online. There’s a couple that can be downloaded, but I want more, and anyway, I’d like to buy, within my means. I can’t, because I can’t get the facility. I should and would subscribe to the foreign Guardian, because I get a lot of material from them, but I can’t, because I don’t have the facility.
To my mind, the biggest job for this investment summit in respect to the Orange Economy is to make a path for our artists to market their wares out there. I brought up this issue at a NICH meeting some long years ago, but as far as I know there’s been no attempt to open that picado. I understand it’s not a concern of Belizeans who have lived in the US and have accounts there. I don’t know why the government and its agencies and willing Belizeans living abroad can’t get together and work out something to facilitate Belizeans who don’t have access.