In what is not a new, but extremely rare occurrence, bail has been granted to a murder accused here in Guyana.
Though committed to stand trial for the capital offence back in 2020, Adoni Bowen’s attorney Dexter Todd in a release to the press yesterday said that his client’s name never appeared for trial in any of the Criminal Sessions of the High Court since.
Todd said that as a result, he made an application to the High Court on December 16th of last year for the accused to be admitted to bail pending his trial.
He said that on the hearing of the application filed on behalf of his client, it was revealed to the Court that Bowen had never been indicted for murder, which led to Justice Simone Morris-Ramlall granting him bail.
Todd said that Bowen had been arrested and remanded to prison on May 8th, 2015 for the murder of Shevon Gordon; and upon completion of his preliminary inquiry (PI) in May 2017, was committed to stand trial in the High Court at the next available sitting.
The defence attorney said that the PI was reopened in April of 2019 and Bowen was again committed to stand trial in 2020.
Despite being committed since then, however, Todd said his client’s name had never been listed for trial in any of the subsequent Criminal Sessions, which led to his application for bail.
According to Todd in his release, the State in its defence to the application stated that the Director of Public Prosecutions had made a second request for a reopening of the PI but that there had been no indication on any document of whether that was in fact done.
He said that while the State did indicate in its defence that the presiding Magistrate at the time confirmed that the PI was indeed reopened for a second time, there was no evidence to prove same.
Todd sad the State contended that that it was “awaiting word” on the reopening of the Preli-minary Inquiry as well as depositions from that said reopening.
Todd in the release said that Justice Morris-Ramlall on the first hearing of the application did not accept that answer from the State and while she did not grant Bowen bail on that occasion, she instructed the prosecutors in the matter to get all the necessary information needed and to file a supplementary Affidavit in Defence highlighting why Bowen’s name was never on the Criminal Assizes Session, as well as all the relevant information as to his various Preliminary Inquiries.
According to Todd, in its Supplementary Affidavit in Defence, the prosecution stated that the Clerk of Court perused Bowen’s file and found that the second Preliminary Inquiry was opened in June 2021 and that the file was uplifted on January 4th, 2023, to compile the depositions of the Preliminary Inquiry.
This, he said, highlighted that the accused was never indicted for murder—a very important aspect for the process.
The lawyer went on to note that Justice Morris-Ramlall agreed with his submissions that his client’s constitutional rights had been breached by that delay and in those circumstances granted him bail in the sum of $750,000 with the condition that he reports to the police every Friday “until his trial for murder in the High Court is completed.”
Precedent
More than a decade ago—back in 2008—Guyana saw its appellate court for the first time granting bail to a murder-accused.
The Guyana Court Appeal affirmed the decision of then Chief Justice (ag) Ian Chang, who gave weight to Article 153 of the Constitution by which he noted he was empowered with the discretion to safeguard the fundamental rights of an accused.
It was against this background that Justice Chang said he was granting bail to an accused who had not only been on remand for eight years awaiting trial, but also on the ground that the delays in the case, had been occasioned through no fault of his own, but by prosecutorial error.
The then Chief Justice had made it clear that the accused should not have been made to so suffer at the hands of the State.
Justice Chang in his May 2008 ruling had also cited in his ruling Article 139(4) of the Guyana Constitution which provides for bail.
Importantly that Article provides for bail, especially where the accused “is not tried within a reasonable time.”
Justice Chang further went on to declare that the Constitutional right of the accused to a hearing within a reasonable time pursuant to Article 144(1) had also been contravened by the State.
He had underscored that an accused is entitled to a presumption of innocence until found guilty by a court and should therefore not have to wait “unconscionable lengths before being brought to trial.”
Article 139(4) on which Justice Chang had relied, also provides in Guyana for conditions to be attached to the grant of bail in such cases.
The subsection states among other things, “…he shall be released either unconditionally or upon reasonable conditions, including in particular such conditions as are reasonably necessary to ensure that he appears at a later date for trial or for proceedings preliminary to trial.”
In upholding Justice Chang’s ruling, the Guyana Court of Appeal had found that the provisions of the Constitution displaced the common law practice in relation to bail for persons charged with murder and that Article 139(4) placed no limitation nor created any exception to the categories of criminal offences to which it applied.
It said that the submission that the accused ought not to have been released on bail since he had been charged with murder and murder had never been a bailable offence at common law marked a failure to appreciate the well-constructed approach of the Chief Justice, having found a breach of Article 144(1), to fashion relief while bearing in mind at the same time the need to balance the infringement of a constitutional right against the public interest in the attainment of justice.
The local appellate court had said that moreover, to ignore the provisions of Article 139(4) of would mark a failure to recognize the supremacy of the law of the Constitution.
The Court did caution, however, that the particular case was attended by peculiar facts and circumstances.
Background
Bowen was one of three men charged with the murder of the Wismar businesswoman who was shot during a robbery in April of 2015.
The attack had occurred as Shevon and her husband, Elon Gordon, were about to enter their home.
One of the robbers, armed with a gun, confronted Shevon, who had disembarked from her canter in front of her home. The men demanded the bag she was carrying.
One of the men fired two rounds in the air while she struggled with the other. She was eventually shot while struggling to maintain possession of the bag.
