Defense attorney Queen’s Counsel Larry Smith says his client, former murder accused Pedro Deroy Ellis, feels “vindicated” by the High Court’s decision to award him $75 000 in damages after he was unlawfully incarcerated.
The outcome of the constitutional case, he said, had “set aright” an error.
On Monday, Madam Justice Shona Griffith ordered that Ellis be paid $50 000 in non-pecuniary damages and $25 000 in vindicatory damages, given that his constitutional rights had been breached when he was remanded to prison for 18 days after his criminal trial was concluded in the High Court and he was found not guilty of murder.
“My client feels vindicated. We have been making a simple point all along – a man who has been found not guilty of murder by the jury and for whom the jury does not reach a verdict on the lesser charge of manslaughter, cannot be sent to prison because that indictment is at an end,” Smith said.
He added that “this clear point was completely lost” at the conclusion of the criminal trial when the court refused to grant his client his freedom.
“By this error, which I hope will never be repeated, my client lost 18 days of his freedom. This was 18 days of stress and distress; 18 days of an uncertain future; 18 days away from his family. All this after waiting six and one half years on remand at Dodds before he had his trial.
“The court, dealing with this constitutional claim, has now set aright this error. It has done this with one, the declaration of the breach of my client’s constitutional right to his liberty; two, the award of damages for that breach, and three, a further award to affirm and vindicate the high value of the constitutional right to liberty.”
Ellis had gone on trial in 2019 for the May 5, 2013 stabbing death of Antonio Harewood. However, at the end of that trial, the 12-member jury found him not guilty of murder and could not reach a verdict on manslaughter.
Ellis was then remanded by trial judge, Justice Carlisle Greaves, while a decision was made on whether there would be a retrial, despite objections from his lawyers.
Smith and attorney-at-law Jamila Smith then took the matter to the Court of Appeal and the three-member panel sided with the claimant that there was no legal ground to keep him. He was released in November 2019.
Justice Griffith affirmed that there was a breach of Ellis’ constitutional rights and ruled that his case was one in which an award of damages was “necessary and appropriate”.
The Queen’s Counsel insisted that it was important to remember that “an individual’s right to liberty is sacrosanct”.
