Thirteen witnesses out of a listed 21 will be called by the prosecution in the first ever judge only murder trial, which was adjourned yesterday until November 2.
The defendant, Jeffery Daniel, is accused of killing 56-year-old David Roberts back in May 2021 after an altercation between the two men ensued at Roberts’ home. Roberts was later found in the vicinity of his home where he was pronounced dead by a doctor that same day.
Daniel who was 26 years old at the time of the incident has claimed that he had sustained injuries himself especially about his chest, his forehead, his fingers, and his back—which his defence attorney Wendel Alexander will be relying on to make his case for self-defence.
Judge only trials were introduced under the Criminal Proceedings (Trial by Judge Alone) Act during the pandemic due to the backlog of cases caused by the unavailability of jurors.
Justice Tunde Bakre—who was recently appointed to serve as a High Court judge after being a well-respected judge and legal practitioner in his home country of Nigeria—will preside over the proceedings and has highlighted the need for transparency and strict guidance to regulations as he stressed the historic nature of the trial.
Daniel appeared before Magistrate Ngaio Emanuel in the All Saints Magistrate Court in 2021, but the matter was adjourned numerous times before it was sent to the High Court for adjudication.
The case was then pushed back several times between May last year and yesterday, and it is expected that the conclusion of the trial to be relatively swift.