Magistrate Latchman should have recused herself

May 13, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

It is my opinion that Magistrate Judy Latchman should have recused herself in the criminal trial of Alana Taylor. I took the magistrate before the Judicial Service Commission because of what I considered her questionable attitude to Ms. Taylor in a criminal case in which Ms. Taylor was an accused.
On Tuesday, the magistrate found Ms. Taylor guilty and sentenced her to five years in jail.
A strange thing happened when the magistrate delivered her verdict. Dexter Todd, the attorney representing Ms. Taylor told me the magistrate read from a forty-page, type written document. Todd told me he never saw a magistrate handed down such a thick judgement before. Certainly not Ms. Latchman.
Did Latchman anticipate my involvement thus she protected herself by the voluminous document? I don’t know but I cling tenaciously to the position that given the publicity the magistrate received over the Alan Taylor incident, she should not have presided over Taylor’s fate.
Let’s rewind the tape. In the first court appearance, the prosecutor informed the magistrate that Ms. Taylor was wrongly charged and thus had no objection to bail. The magistrate ignored that advice and remanded Ms. Taylor. That was when I came in. I ran a column on this controversy because in my interpretation of the law the judge is neutral; the prosecutor seeks prosecution, the defence seeks acquittal. In the Taylor case, the prosecutor sought not to prosecute. He informed the neutral judge that he had no interest in having Taylor remanded.
The neutral judge has to be guided by the evidence in front of him/her. If the prosecutor tells a judge that an accused is wrongfully before the court it means that he has information in his possession that the magistrate hasn’t. It is the prosecutor that has a file on the crime committed and the evidence.
The magistrate is not in possession of such material and therefore has to be guided by what he/she is told by both prosecutor and defence counsel. Let’s offer a very simple example.
The prosecutor informs the magistrate that he is asking for denial of bail in a dangerous driving charge because the police are still investigating the matter since cocaine and weapons were found in the car. Only one person in the court knows that – the prosecutor— because he has a police file that informs him of that.
He then transmits that information to the magistrate who then says that since this is more than dangerous driving, the accused will be remanded. Under no circumstances the magistrate will know the particulars of the case. The magistrate gets those facts from the prosecutor which enables the magistrate to grant or deny bail.
One more example should suffice and we will go to the High Court in a hypothetical case. The prosecutor’s main and only witness is the mother of a woman raped by her ex-lover. The woman then tells the prosecutor she lied; she wanted to spite the ex-lover because of a drug deal gone sour. The prosecutor then informs the judge that there is no case to put to the jury. There and then the case is over. How can the judge say that he is continuing with the hearing? It is the prosecutor that has to continue and the judge has to listen and weigh the evidence. Since there is no evidence to weigh there can be no case.
I was aggrieved at the denial of bail to an accused when the prosecutor informed the court that the accused was wrongly charged. I did several columns in which I mentioned this ugly violation of justice by Magistrate Latchman. The Chancellor, on opening a new magistrate court in Essequibo, referred to the Taylor/ Latchman incident and remarked that citizens ought to complain when they feel they are denied justice. I then petitioned the Judicial Service Commission for the magistrate to be sanctioned.
In a letter dated March 1, 2015, the Judicial Service Commission informed me that the Magistrate was exonerated. I wasn’t summoned so I was not allowed to secure legal representation. Attorney for Taylor, Mark Waldron was not subpoenaed. How and when was the inquiry held? Against this background, for me the morally right thing for Latchman to have done was to recuse herself because she was involved in a controversy with an accused that was before her.
Dexter Todd told me he is seeking bail. And he has already filed appeal papers. President Granger recently said we must be careful what we copy from the developed countries. Guyana needs to copy a moral blueprint from somewhere.

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Magistrate Latchman should have recused herself

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