The judge assigned to preside over the retrial of the man accused of murdering Amy Emily Annamunthodo, over 15 years ago, has advised prosecutors and defence attorneys to not cause unnecessary delays in the case.
High Court Judge Hayden St Clair-Douglas made the plea as Marlon King’s case came up for virtual hearing before him, yesterday morning.
At the start of the hearing, defence attorney Karunaa Bisramsingh said that she and attorney Mario Merritt were retained to represent King, last Tuesday, and had not gotten an opportunity to visit him at the Port-of-Spain State Prison to take instructions.
While St Clair-Douglas granted her request for a three-week adjournment to facilitate the essential process, he warned that he would not facilitate unwarranted delays as the Court of Appeal ordered that his case be heard urgently when it granted him a retrial, last month.
Justice St Clair-Douglas also advised prosecutor Indira Chinebas that she should not wait until King’s lawyers officially write to her to request the disclosure of evidence in the case, to begin the process.
Chinebas indicated that all but one witness, who is deceased, had indicated that they are ready to testify once again when King’s retrial eventually commences.
The case is scheduled to come up for hearing on September 15.
King is accused of murdering Annamunthodo at his Ste Madeleine Road, Marabella, home on May 15, 2006.
Medical reports showed that Annamunthodo was burnt with cigarettes on her vagina, inner thigh, and forearm an hour before she died. She also suffered multiple internal and external injuries throughout her body, including a broken rib and bruised organs.
In their decision, last month, Appellate Judges Alice Yorke-Soo Hon, Mark Mohammed, and Malcolm Holdip ruled that former President and High Court Judge Anthony Carmona made several errors when he presided over King’s trial in 2012.
It ruled that in summing up the case to the jury that eventually convicted King, Carmona misdirected them on the evidence of King’s ex-wife Lou-Ann Davis, who testified over domestic abuse she allegedly endured, and of his neighbour Anthony Rocke, who testified that he saw King punching the child 20 to 30 times while she hung from a cloth tied to her hair and attached to a door ledge.
During the trial, King claimed that he had left the child with her mother and Rocke and suggested that he (Rocke) was in fact the culprit.
In their decision, the appeal panel rejected submissions from King’s attorneys that he should be acquitted of the charge based on the inordinate length of time between the offence and an eventual retrial.
While the panel accepted that the pace of the criminal justice system was “far from ideal”, it noted that such delays were not sufficient to trump the public’s interest in having King’s innocence or guilty determined by a jury.
“In our view, the balance has been tipped in favour of the ordering of a retrial.We are satisfied that the interests of justice will be served by so ordering,” Justice Mohammed, who delivered the panel’s unanimous decision, said.
