The Tribune

By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

DEFENCE lawyers are pushing back against Attorney General Ryan Pinder’s call for courts to deny bail to defendants accused of committing violent acts under certain circumstances.

Last week, Mr Pinder noted recent cases where the Court of Appeal upheld decisions by lower courts to deny bail to defendants. In those cases, the judges found protecting the public’s safety, and the defendant was important.

However, attorney David Cash said yesterday the problem is prosecutors often fail to provide substantial evidence that people released on bail must be kept in custody for their protection.

“It’s not the courts,” Mr Cash said. “It’s his office, and the office that comes under him cannot provide evidentially substantial grounds for believing that these people who are being released on bail need to be kept in custody for their own protection or whether they’re a threat to the public.”

People on bail represent a large subset of those murdered. Mr Pinder highlighted several recent Court of Appeal judgments that affirmed the denial of bail, including cases where an accused’s life was in danger, an alleged offender was connected to organised gang activity, and a repeat offender posed a risk to society.

Mr Cash said to deny someone bail, adequate evidence to show the person’s life is in jeopardy or that confining the person in custody will protect the public is necessary.

“If you assert that a person has to be kept in custody for his own protection, you have to, as the prosecution, provide evidence to the court tending to show that there are substantial grounds for believing that if this person is released on bail, there is some reasonable ground that his life would be in jeopardy, that his life would be threatened.

“In the same way, if you assert that the person should be kept in custody in order to protect the public, you have to be able to show by substantial grounds for relief, evidentially that if this person is released, either they themselves will commit further violent offences that would affect the public, or that by someone retaliating against them, it will affect the public.”

Mr Cash stressed it is absurd to deny a person bail as a blanket reaction to the murder rate.

“You can’t just say that a particular person is going to be murdered if released on bail because other persons were murdered when released on bail,” he said. “That’s like saying I can’t drive my car because someone in Eleuthera got in a car accident. That’s absurd.”