The Tribune

By LAMECH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

ljohnson@tribunemedia.net

A VETERAN lawyer yesterday called on critics of the recent decision for Kofhe Goodman to be retried concerning the murder of 11-year-old Marco Archer to read the entire Court of Appeal judgment before their hasty actions and angry comments result in a permanent stay of a retrial.

Wayne Munroe, QC, was the court appointed lawyer who successfully argued on Goodman’s behalf in the Court of Appeal that adverse pre-trial publicity, misconduct of Goodman’s defence lawyer and a jury irregularity were major grounds for his client’s case to be reheard in the Supreme Court.

Shortly after the news broke, disgruntled Bahamians took to social media to vilify the judiciary, Goodman and his lawyer and questioned whether victims of crime could receive justice.

Mr Munroe, when contacted by The Tribune yesterday, expressed little concern for his or his client’s personal safety or comments questioning their moral fibre. However, he did caution the people to be responsible in their reactions to the ruling less there be a permanent stay on the matter.

Mr Munroe could not say if he would be retained for Goodman’s unlikely bail application or inevitable retrial.

He did note, however, that whoever is retained by Goodman can very well gather the prejudicial and non-factual comments that have been published and make a case as to why a retrial is not possible as has been done in other jurisdictions, including the United States.

Mr Munroe implored the general public to read the Court of Appeal’s decision in its entirety.

“The people who are in fact running on need to read the judgment and they will see that that sort of behaviour is most likely to mean that his trial cannot be set quickly and therefore he is likely to be granted bail if it is delayed,” Mr Munroe said. “If the comments and behaviour escalate to the extreme it becomes possible that he cannot get a fair trial and his matter is stayed forever.

“So people need to learn to read digest and understand so they don’t end up bringing about the results they claim not to want.”

“They’re very short minded people,” Mr Munroe said of the critics.

“I haven’t been following all of them, only the ones that show up on my (Facebook) news feed. However, for the ones I have seen, clearly those persons were present when this alleged incident happened and they need to make themselves available to the Office of the Attorney General to place themselves on the witness list,” he added.

“If indeed we were ever to get to the point where execution is decided by a jury as I’ve recommended in the past, then we would and should want an accused person to have a fair, unprejudiced and robust trial so that if a conviction is reached and execution is decided, there would be no arguments that a fair trial did not occur. That what the whole process of right to a fair trial is about.”

“The comments by those individuals show that they don’t understand and more importantly, a lot of their comments are factually incorrect,” he stressed.

Last Thursday, Justices Dame Anita Allen, Jon Isaacs and Stella Crane-Scott were all in agreement that Goodman’s trial lawyer Geoffrey Farquharson’s conduct during the four-month trial was “persistent, deliberate, and gross.”

However, appellate President Dame Anita dissented from the opinion of Justices Isaacs and Crane-Scott that Goodman’s chances at a fair trial had been hampered by adverse coverage which included National Security Minister Dr Bernard Nottage’s announcement on “Marco’s Law” two weeks prior to the start of trial in April, 2013, notwithstanding that the case had no evidence or charge concerning kidnappings or sexual assault.

The judges were in agreement on their concern that a physical altercation had taken place between two jurors during the lunch break on the day of the summation.

A retrial was ordered for as soon as possible. Goodman, however, had sought a deferment of a retrial if the court were to allow the appeal against his murder conviction and death sentence.

The Court of Appeal’s 72-page judgment can be found on its website.