The Tribune

By PAVEL BAILEY

Tribune Staff Reporter

pbailey@tribunemedia.net

THE marshal of the Coroner’s Court asked a Supreme Court judge yesterday to reject police officers’ efforts to appeal last year’s homicide by manslaughter finding in the killing of Azario Major.

Angelo Whitfield, the marshal, appeared before Justice Franklyn Williams on behalf of the Office of the Attorney General.

A five-person jury ruled against two officers last year. Azario was killed outside Woody’s Bar on Fire Trial Road on December 26, 2021.

Mr Whitfied asked the judge to dismiss the officers’ appeal application, arguing that their attorney, Keevon Maynard, gave no evidence that the Coroner was impartial or that the jury was coerced into making the finding they did.

 Mr Whitfied also said the officers’ attorney did not give specific reasons for quashing the finding.

 He said the application did not give evidence that pre-trial publicity prejudiced the jury and affected their finding.

 He said Mr Maynard did not provide evidence that the jury saw a prominent video of the incident, which was published before the inquest and reportedly had over 100,000 views.

 Mr Whitfield expressed confidence that the jury approached the inquest fairly and impartially.

 Mr Whitfield said if the judge overturns the inquest finding, gathering evidence again may be difficult because witnesses are unlikely to go through another painful inquiry.

 Mr Maynard started his response to these submissions by apologizing for delaying his initial application to the judge.

 He said his appeal application has a chance of success and that granting it would not prejudice the respondents.

 Referencing negative pre-trial publicity, Mr Maynard said a video posted on Facebook by Christian AdamG about the matter before the inquest was highly prejudicial to the case.

 He said the coroner should have stayed the case because the jury couldn’t be properly directed away from the pre-trial publicity.

 Before saying that the matter would be adjourned to a later date, Justice Williams reminded both parties that the matter under scrutiny was an inquest and not a criminal trial.

 He also noted that while he requested the transcripts from the inquest in November, he had yet to receive them.

   Azario’s relatives want the officers to face criminal charges. Acting Director of Public Prosecutions Cordell Frazier has said she won’t decide on this until the various appeal attempts end.