Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterTHE COURT of Appeal has frowned on the three-year delay by the Supreme Court in preparing the notes of evidence at the trial of 33-year-old Steve McCalla who is appealing against his conviction and nine-year prison sentence for demanding money with menaces from Beverley Lopez, current president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ).
After the disclosure was made in court Thursday, the Hon. Ian Forte, president of the Court of Appeal, directed the Registrar of the Court of Appeal, Patricia Levers, to write a letter to the Registrar of the Supreme Court requesting the notes of evidence at McCalla's trial as well as all documentary evidence in the case. He said all that was before the court was the judge's summation to the jury.
Mr. Justice Forte said that a lot of what McCalla was complaining about was in the notes of evidence. McCalla's appeal was put off until the next four weeks when it is expected that the notes of evidence will be ready.
McCalla who is representing himself said he applied for the notes of evidence shortly after he was convicted in November 2001 in the Home Circuit Court but they were not sent to him.
Crown Counsel Jeneice Nelson-Brown pointed out that the judge said in his summing up that McCalla said he wrote both notes and that statement would give the impression that they were the original demand note and a sample of the note.
SAMPLE
In response, McCalla said he did not say he had written both notes. He said he had only written a sample for the handwriting experts.
Mrs. Nelson-Brown asked for McCalla's defence to be admitted in the notes of evidence so that it could be ascertained what he had actually said in relation to the notes. McCalla is appealing on the ground that the Crown witnesses gave conflicting statements at his trial.
The Crown led evidence at the trial that on November 1, 2000, a man with a British accent lured Mrs. Lopez to the Hilton Kingston Hotel on the pretext that he was a British journalist and wanted to interview her. She was at that time president of the Jamaica Exporters Association. When she went to the hotel, McCalla brandished a knife and he and a woman overpowered her and forced her to drink a sedative. A note was left demanding $400,000 from her.
A Home Circuit Court jury convicted McCalla of demanding money with menaces and Mr. Justice Howard Cooke sentenced him to nine years' imprisonment.
McCalla's application for leave to appeal was set for hearing yesterday before Mr. Justice Forte, Mr. Justice Clarence Walker and Mr. Justice Seymour Panton.
