Attorneys back DPP and warn: Public commentary risks fair trial in Sealy case

AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

Re­porter

an­ge­lo.je­didi­[email protected]

Two se­nior at­tor­neys have strong­ly backed the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) in cau­tion­ing the me­dia and the pub­lic against pub­lish­ing ma­te­r­i­al that could prej­u­dice the crim­i­nal case in­volv­ing Ka­ia Sealy.

This re­sponse fol­lows a for­mal state­ment is­sued by DPP Roger Gas­pard SC on Fri­day evening, warn­ing the me­dia and so­cial me­dia users of the le­gal and eth­i­cal dan­gers of com­pro­mis­ing the on­go­ing crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ing, which stemmed from the killing of 31-year-old Joshua Sama­roo.

Speak­ing to the Sun­day Guardian yes­ter­day, Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan en­dorsed the DPP’s warn­ing, say­ing that Gas­pard is an en­tire­ly in­de­pen­dent con­sti­tu­tion­al en­ti­ty and must re­main free from ex­ter­nal in­flu­ence. This, he said, in­cludes protest­ing out­side the Of­fice of the DPP.

“Or­di­nary peo­ple see the protests and keep talk­ing about the video, the video. The whole of T&T is quite aware. And I, my­self and you, every­body. Look­ing at the video, no­body is see­ing in­side the car. No­body is see­ing what’s hap­pen­ing in the car. So let due process take place,” Khan said.

“The law is, if a mat­ter is be­fore the court, you can­not com­ment and you can­not protest and say that the per­son has been wrong­ly charged. That’s con­tempt of court.”

Crim­i­nal de­fence at­tor­ney Fa­reed Ali raised sim­i­lar con­cerns sur­round­ing the case, which has drawn in­tense pub­lic scruti­ny. Ali warned that wide­spread me­dia cov­er­age, along with the spread of un­ver­i­fied in­for­ma­tion in pub­lic dis­course and dai­ly com­men­tary, could end up sway­ing a ju­ry be­fore the mat­ter goes to court.

This, he said, is due to peo­ple “form­ing views in a vac­u­um with­out hav­ing all the in­for­ma­tion.”

Ali point­ed to the in­fa­mous 1999 Dole Chadee tri­al, where de­fence at­tor­neys filed abuse of process ap­pli­ca­tions, ar­gu­ing that Chadee could not get a fair tri­al be­cause pub­lic opin­ion was heav­i­ly against him as an al­leged drug lord. Ali said that the case is a re­minder of how strong pub­lic opin­ion can threat­en the right to an un­bi­ased ju­ry.

“This [Ka­ia Sealey] mat­ter has in­fect­ed the pub­lic space in such a way that every­body, in­clud­ing the man on the street, has an opin­ion. Every­body has be­gun to draw straws and to take sides. And if we are to go to tri­al now, there’s pres­sures be­ing put on the in­sti­tu­tions of the state. Mean­ing that per­haps a ju­ry could nev­er de­lib­er­ate and could nev­er form an opin­ion with­out be­ing im­pact­ed by what is in the pub­lic space,” Ali said.

“I think this is a mes­sage that has to res­onate not just with the civil­ian pop­u­la­tion, not just with jour­nal­ists. But with the po­lice and per­haps even the de­fence in this mat­ter.”

Mean­while, in re­sponse to the DPP’s warn­ing, the Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (MATT) drew a clear line be­tween re­spon­si­ble jour­nal­ism and com­ments cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia plat­forms.

In a me­dia re­lease, MATT said the or­gan­i­sa­tion stands firm­ly on the side of the rule of law and does not re­gard the DPP’s state­ment as “in­tim­i­da­tion” or an at­tempt to in­ter­fere with le­git­i­mate jour­nal­ism.

“We ac­knowl­edge that the DPP has a con­sti­tu­tion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect the in­tegri­ty of crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings, just as the me­dia has a con­sti­tu­tion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to re­port mat­ters of pub­lic in­ter­est fair­ly, ac­cu­rate­ly and re­spon­si­bly,” the state­ment said.