Committal order quashed after legal blunder in murder case

A murder accused is to face fresh committal proceedings in the St James Parish Court after a legal misstep by a parish judge in accepting an inadmissible witness statement resulted in the quashing of a committal order in the murder case.

In a judgment delivered on July 11, 2025, the panel comprising justices Andrea Thomas, Anne-Marie Nembhard, and Dale Staple found that Justice Sasha-Marie Ashley – then senior parish judge for St James – erred in law by admitting a procedurally flawed statement during the preliminary inquiry. The witness in question was the sole eyewitness.

The Full Court held that the judge went beyond the limits of the Committal Proceedings Act and the Rules by admitting the statement without considering alternatives available under Rule 25.

“She would have taken a decision that was outside of her discretion and ultimately outside of her powers. This renders her decision ultra vires,” they said.

They further emphasised that her decision was “founded on unlawfully admitted evidence”, as the statement failed to comply with the lawful procedure prescribed under the act.

The key witness statement did not meet the statutory standards outlined in Section 6 of the Committal Proceedings Act (CPA), specifically because it lacked the required signature from the recording officer. As a result, it could not lawfully be admitted to support a finding that a prima facie case of murder had been made.

“It is hereby declared that the witness statement of ... is not compliant with Section 6 of the Committal Proceedings Act and therefore could not have been admitted as evidence,” the judges ruled.

The court stressed that the safeguards under the CPA are mandatory.

“The act requires that the maker and the recorder of the statement sign in the presence of each other and the presence of a senior officer,” the judgment stated. “This was not done in the case of the impugned statement.”

Accordingly, the Full Court issued an order of certiorari quashing the parish judge’s ruling that the evidence bundle – including the disputed statement – complied with the law. The committal order sending Kenya Robinson to trial in the Circuit Court was also set aside, with instructions for the matter to return to the parish court before a different judge.

SUPPLEMENTAL WITNESS STATEMENT

The judges also criticised the prosecution’s reliance on a supplemental witness statement from the detective who recorded the original statement. In that later statement, he claimed he and a senior officer were present when the eyewitness signed it. However, he had failed to sign the original himself – a direct breach of Section 6(2)(b) of the act.

“The supplemental witness statement, while perhaps useful for context, could not retroactively cure a non-compliant document,” the court observed.

Robinson was arrested and charged on March 10, 2022 for the murder of Kristoff Hibbert in Montego Bay. The prosecution’s case hinges on the evidence of the eyewitness.

The first committal hearing took place in October 2022 before Judge Ashley. At that time, Robinson’s then counsel challenged several statements in the committal bundle – particularly the one given by the eyewitness – arguing that it lacked the recorder’s signature and could not replace oral testimony under the CPA.

The judge granted the prosecution an adjournment to address the issues. A supplemental committal bundle was later served on both the court and defence, including a further statement from the recording officer.

However, defence counsel maintained their objection, contending that the additional statement did not correct the original’s non-compliance with Section 6.

Despite this, the judge admitted the statement. In her affidavit, she stated that she believed “the integrity of the statement-taking process had been preserved”, and that the supplemental statement “sufficiently rectified the omission”.

The Full Court disagreed, finding that the defect could not be cured after the fact, particularly because the eyewitness’s account was the only evidence linking Robinson to the offence.

“In the absence of Miss Wright’s evidence, she being the sole witness to give an account of the alleged circumstances in which the deceased met his death, I could not properly find a prima facie case made out against the claimant,” the Court stated.

While the judges acknowledged that the adjournment was properly granted within the framework of the Rules, they concluded that the subsequent decision to admit the inadmissible statement was unlawful.

Following the committal order, Robinson applied for judicial review, claiming the judge acted outside her lawful powers. Leave was granted in July 2024 by Justice Sonya Wint-Blair, limited to the question of whether the statement complied with Section 6 of the CPA.

“The statement lacks the signature of the recorder. That defect goes to the heart of the document’s admissibility,” Robinson stated in his affidavit. “No person should be committed to stand trial on such a defective evidentiary foundation.”

Defence lawyers also argued that the clerk of the court should have either sought oral testimony from the eyewitness or excluded the statement entirely.

Attorney-at-law Lemar Neale and Ayana Worgs, instructed by Jacobs Law, represented the claimant. Attorneys Stuart Stimpson and Rochelle Brown, instructed by the director of state proceedings, appeared for the defendant.

tanesha.mundle@gleanerjm.com