Derek Achong

A 46-year-old man, who served a 24-year prison sen­tence for mur­der­ing a busi­ness­man dur­ing a botched car jack­ing in 2003, has sued the State over its al­most decade-long de­lay in com­pen­sat­ing him for the prison con­di­tions he briefly en­dured while on re­mand at the Port-of-Spain State Prison.

Last week, lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Col­in Edge­hill, of Mamoral Vil­lage, Ch­agua­nas, filed his con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tion against the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al over its in­or­di­nate de­lay in pay­ing the com­pen­sa­tion, which was or­dered by a High Court Judge in 2008.

In late 2003, Edge­hill, for­mer­ly of Suc­cess Vil­lage, Laven­tille, and Mar­cus Mar­shall, of Do­ra­ta Street, Mor­vant, were charged with killing for­mer Ro­to­plas­tics di­rec­tor Rus­sell Govia on Oc­to­ber 27, that year.

Govia was dri­ving in­to his Cas­cade home when he was am­bushed by Edge­hill and Mar­shall, who at­tempt­ed to rob him of his Nis­san Almera.

Govia al­lowed the men to take the car, but as they were dri­ving away, he drew his li­censed firearm and shot at them, hit­ting Edge­hill on his shoul­der.

The gun­men re­turned fire and Govia was shot sev­er­al times. They aban­doned the car a short dis­tance away.

When Edge­hill was ar­rest­ed days lat­er, he con­fessed to par­tic­i­pat­ing in the rob­bery.

Edge­hill was tak­en to hos­pi­tal and a bul­let frag­ment was re­moved from his wound and was lat­er matched to Govia’s firearm.

In 2009, Edge­hill and Mar­shall went on tri­al for the crime and were con­vict­ed by a 12-mem­ber-ju­ry.

Their con­vic­tions were over­turned by the Court of Ap­peal, who fault­ed tri­al judge and for­mer Jus­tice Min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney for al­low­ing their tri­al to pro­ceed with­out ad­dress­ing sub­mis­sions from their at­tor­neys on their al­leged con­fes­sion state­ments, which at the time, they claimed was co­erced from them by po­lice.

In 2016, both men were al­lowed to plead to felony mur­der be­fore for­mer High Court Judge and cur­rent Ap­peal Court Judge Gillian Lucky.

Un­der the felony mur­der rule, the manda­to­ry death penal­ty for mur­der is waived in cir­cum­stances where death re­sults dur­ing the com­mis­sion of a less­er crim­i­nal of­fence, which in most cas­es is rob­bery.

While she gave each man a 24 year sen­tence, both were re­leased with­in two years of their guilty pleas as Jus­tice Lucky ap­plied the manda­to­ry one third dis­count af­ford­ed to per­sons who plead guilty and de­duct­ed the 12 years and 10 months they spent on re­mand while await­ing tri­al.

While on re­mand for the crime, Edge­hill filed a law­suit over the con­di­tions he en­dured at the prison be­fore be­ing trans­ferred to the Gold­en Grove State Prison in Arou­ca in 2004.

In Oc­to­ber 2008, Jus­tice Car­ol Gob­in up­held the law­suit and or­dered that he be paid $20,550 in com­pen­sa­tion, which was cal­cu­lat­ed based on the 274 days he spent at the prison at a dai­ly rate of $75.

The AG’s Of­fice ap­pealed the judge­ment but it was re­ject­ed by the Court of Ap­peal in 2012.

In his con­sti­tu­tion­al claim, Edge­hill’s lawyers are claim­ing that his fun­da­men­tal con­sti­tu­tion­al rights were breached by the de­lay.

“The ac­tions of the de­fen­dant have been de­lib­er­ate, ar­bi­trary, op­pres­sive and spite­ful,” Edge­hill said, in his af­fi­davit at­tached to the law­suit.

Edge­hill not­ed that he would have had le­gal av­enues to com­pel the pay­ment of the dam­ages plus the sig­nif­i­cant in­ter­est which ac­crued, if his law­suit was against a pri­vate lit­i­gant as op­posed to the State. 

“A court has no means of com­pelling the obe­di­ence of the Gov­ern­ment to its or­ders, but a fail­ure to do so brings the sys­tem of jus­tice it­self in­to dis­re­pute,” he said.

Through the law­suit, Edge­hill is seek­ing a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions and an or­der com­pelling the pay­ment. He is al­so seek­ing ad­di­tion­al dam­ages for the breach of his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights caused by the de­lay.

In its re­sponse to the threat of the law­suit in De­cem­ber last year, the AG’s Of­fice sug­gest­ed that the law­suit would be an abuse of process as there are oth­er meth­ods to com­pel pay­ment.

It re­ferred to the State Li­a­bil­i­ty and Pro­ceed­ings Act, as it point­ed out that if the State fails to pay a judge­ment debt with­in 120 days, a lit­i­gant can ap­ply to the Reg­is­trar of the Supreme Court for a cer­tifi­cate which can be served on the Comp­trol­ler of Ac­counts for pay­ment.

Edge­hill is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Ger­ald Ramdeen and Dayadai Har­ri­paul.

The case has been as­signed to Jus­tice Joan Charles, who is sched­uled to host a case man­age­ment con­fer­ence on Feb­ru­ary 25.