That's Justice?

Sometimes I have to wonder whether Jamaican judges live in Wonderland. Not all  by any means, but most.
For so often we see sentences coming out of the courts which make no sense at all.

The recent  instance when Justice Fraser sentenced a man who raped  a I2 yr old girl and  buried her alive to  just I2 years in jail, worse after the probation report on the criminal showed he had nor remorse, since he claimed "She Wanted It" was incomprehensible to say the least.

Now we see  a sentence of 3 months being  handed down to  hungry man who stole 45 pods of  ackees  from the governor general's home at king's house.

By no means is one  condoning praedial  larceny which is far too prevalent in Jamaica. In fact I think the laws surrounding praedial larceny are far too mild. But this case is a bit differnt, for the Governor Generals huge unused property belongs to the Jamaican people. So whereas wandering on to the property when one is hungry to ease the terrible pain in the belly, may be wrong, it certainly does not deserve 90 days in jail, an average of 2 days per pod of ackee?

If  I 've ever heard of  a wicked sentence, its got to be that handed down by justice Pusey.

I hope the Governor general who is supposed to be a  highly religious person, will pay the fine so the poor, hungry man does not have to spend Christmas in jail.

A Disgraceful Sentence

From time to time, one sees sentences being handed down in the courts which lead to you ask yourself what the judges/magistrates were thinking. Sometimes these sentences range from extremely harsh for what appears to be a simple demeanour committed by persons who are obviously propelled by nothing but desperation to a ridiculous slap on the wrist for someone who was driven by nothing but greed. And each time you have to ask yourself what kind of training programmes are there for judges/magistrates, especially since "the powers that be" seem to be so opposed to mandatory sentences.

The sentence which really "lick mi fi six:" so to speak, was reported in the Gleaner of November 4th 2011, under the headline Taxi driver sentenced to 12 years for attempted murder. This case referred to the terrible incident where a 12 year old girl was raped and buried alive by a taxi man Garsha Wilson who was known to her family. 
It was a spine chilling case when it was first reported last year and it remains so even with the passage of time. The question that now rises however, is how on earth could the judge sentence such a monster to only 12 years, which will probably see him coming out of jail much earlier, based on whatever grounds they use to release convicted criminals early.


On the other hand, this poor child, even with therapy, has received a life sentence at the hands of this monster. This sentence received makes absolutely no sense. 


One can feel nothing but sympathy for the mother who was reported in the Gleaner of Sunday 6th November as saying on hearing the sentence, "My head start hurting me right away and I begin to cry when I heard the man was sentenced to only 12 years".


According to the DPP, ".....unlike in certain jurisdictions, in Jamaica the crown cannot appeal against senctences". But isn't it time that we should be enacting legislation to give that right of appeal to the prosecution, for  far too many times when judges display to the public and all who are involved that they are totally out of sync with the realities of life, the matter should not just die there. 


Who really cares about the victims of crime in this country?