State prosecutors in the retrial of a man accused of murdering four-year-old Amy Emily Annamunthodo have been advised to quicken their work to avoid delays in the case.
High Court Judge Hayden St Clair-Douglas gave the advice as State prosecutor Indira Chinebas sought to give an update on the progress in Marlon King’s case during a virtual case management conference yesterday.
During the hearing, Chinebas admitted that some evidence requested by King’s defence team had not been disclosed.
Chinebas said that she felt that disclosure was not required but a senior attorney, who is expected to be appointed to prosecute the case, should make the final decision.
St Clair-Douglas suggested that the explanation over the delay was unacceptable.
“The court above me told me to proceed with expedition...The prosecution has to move with the same dispatch,” St Clair-Douglas said.
“I find it unacceptable for you to tell me someone is to be assigned and will look at the file and make a decision. Decisions have to be made with dispatch. Pass that message along and let it be done,” he added.
The case was adjourned to November 17.
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 a decision in late July, 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.
The appeal panel 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 in a fresh trial.
King’s lawyers had requested that the retrial be put on hold while they challenge the Appeal Court’s decision before the United Kingdom-based Privy Council.
However, Justice St Clair-Douglas rejected the suggestion as he noted that they had not obtained a stay of the Appeal Court’s decision to order an urgent retrial.
King is being represented by Mario Merritt and Karunaa Bisramsingh.
