By Elesha George
Attorney Wendel Robinson is supporting a decision by the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC) to overturn a two-year conviction and sentence for Sheldon Aird, who was accused of possession of marijuana while incarcerated.
Aird was accused of having 240 grams of cannabis in his cell at Her Majesty’s Prison – now His Majesty’s Prison (HMP) – when two police officers assigned to the jail arrested and charged him for possession and possession with intent to transfer the drug.
On October 21, 2022, Justice Gertel Thom allowed an appeal which Aird and his colleague had submitted, and ultimately quashed the conviction and ordered that the case could not be remitted to the court for retrial.
Aird who had already served eight calendar months in jail had been granted bail pending the appeal.
During the appeal hearing, his lawyer argued and won on the grounds that the Chief Magistrate Joanne Walsh, who had oversight over the matter, failed to outline how she came to the conclusion that his client was guilty.
“I find a lot of procedures that are taking place in the magistrate court, particularly in the traffic court is a travesty to justice,” Robinson said.
“For all intents and purposes, the magistrate may have been correct but the court demands and justice demands that the magistrate ought properly to go through in her analysis of the evidence as to how she finds him guilty,” he said.
Robinson said the magistrate failed to define the word ‘possession’ as it relates to the case and did not state why she felt the accused was in possession of the drugs.
He said: “It behooves any magistrate adjudicating on a matter, no matter how simple the matter is, to give reasons for their decisions to show how you come to the conclusion that a man is guilty or not guilty; analyse the law to the facts of the case.
“Even if she believes the officers, she has to look at the credibility of the witnesses and say why she prefers the evidence of the officers as opposed to that of the defendant,” he added.
In the appeal, Robinson was also critical of the length of imprisonment for possession of such a small quantity of cannabis, telling Observer that “240 grams of cannabis should hardly ever attract a prison sentence, whether or not the person was already an inmate at the prison, and if it’s going to be a prison sentence then it has to be a short, sharp sentence”.
Robinson represented Aird after he filed the appeal against Walsh’s decision.
Aird had pleaded not guilty to the charge when he initially appeared before the Magistrate and represented himself.
