The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune News Editor

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE family of Azario Major is frustrated by what they see as an effort to delay justice after police killed their loved one outside Woody’s Bar on Fire Trail Road on December 26, 2021.

In May, a Coroner’s Court jury ruled that Major’s police-involved killing was a homicide by manslaughter.

Last week, Justice Franklyn Williams granted the officers in the case leave to appeal the Coroner Court’s ruling.

The judge’s decision came months after the officers filed a constitutional motion to overturn the Coroner’s Court ruling, arguing that pretrial publicity prevented a fair inquest.

Justice Williams told the officers’ lawyer in August that he was doing his clients a “disservice” by insisting the inquest finding be quashed because the coroner did not consider his constitutional motion.

 The judge said he would deliver his ruling in October, but has not as yet done so.

 “This extraordinary delay is extremely burdensome and has brought a lot of stress on the family because this matter should have been dismissed in May,” said Frederick Major, Azario’s father, on Friday.

 Mr Major and his lawyer noted the law gives people 30 days to appeal a Coroner’s Court ruling, claiming that the officers were out of time with their application.

 Although a Supreme Court judge can grant an appeal when a person is out of time, Azario’s family questioned why the marshall of the Coroner’s Court was not invited to object to the out-of-time appeal.

 “Time given for leave to appeal from a verdict in a Coroner’s inquest is one month,” said David Cash, the family’s lawyer, in a statement. “The intended appellants have had more than enough time to appeal if they wished to from the Coroner’s verdict. This is once again a case of justice delayed for the family of Azario Major as other families await justice for the death of their loved ones at the hands of police.”