Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
WHEN THE Kraal murder case enters its seventh week today submissions are expected to be made in law in the absence of the jury.
On Thursday, the Crown closed its case after calling 44 witnesses for the prosecution.
Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams and five other policemen went on trial on October 31 for the murder of two men and two women at Kraal on May 7, 2003.
After the Crown closed its case, the lawyers began making submissions in the absence of the jury with Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe expected to make a ruling on the submissions .
Prior to April 1995, submissions were made in the presence of the jury. However, on April 16, 1995 the Privy Council ruled in the case of Robert Crosdale that submissions in law must be made in the absence of the jury.
HELD LANDMARK RULING
The Privy Council held in its landmark ruling that "all the jury need to be told is that a legal matter has arisen on which the ruling of the judge is sought. Any contrary practice in Jamaica ought to be discontinued".
Crosdale was convicted in February 1989 of the June 1988 murder of John Roberts. He had lost his appeal in the Court of Appeal which certified a point of law for the United Kingdom Privy Council to determine.
The point of law was whether the jury should be asked to withdraw during a submission of no case to answer.
When several accused persons are charged jointly with an offence, a judge can uphold the submissions in respect to all of them or in respect to some.
However, the judge will have to direct the jury to return a formal verdict of not guilty when a submission in law is upheld by the judge.
A judge is not obliged to tell the jury the reasons for his ruling. However, when some are freed after a submission in law has been upheld and the trial proceeds with others, the judge during the course of the summation to the jury is obliged to say on what basis the others were freed.
The jury are always told during summation that they are the sole judges of the fact and that it is for them to decide whether an accused person is guilty of the charge.
