Observe and keep an eye on them!

Justice Leighton Pusey, a judge on the SUPREME COURT, recently indicated his implicit support for the proposed Bail Act’s provisions allowing for electronic monitoring of those out on bail.

After yet another prisoner free on bond vanished on the day the trial was about to begin in his court, the judge made a statement regarding the matter.

“It’s always interesting to see legislation made with grand designs and passed and the executive doesn’t necessarily get around to these things,” Justice Pusey said on Friday. “Very interestingly, there is scope for two things that the powers that be have not yet put in place in relation to the Bail Act, which is that there is actually a provision for electronic monitoring which we never had.”

Koran Patterson, the defendant who would go on trial for the 2012 murder of lawyer Clover Graham, had reportedly skipped bail, according to information provided to the trial court. Simeon Sutherland, the man suspected of killing former PNP MP Dr. Lynvale Bloomfield, whose trial was scheduled to commence before Justice Pusey, vanished from the court’s grounds after entering with his parents only last November. He’s still evading capture. Officials at the sea and airports have been told to be on high alert, and the police have been directed to arrest Sutherland immediately.

One of the elements of the new Bail Act will be the electronic monitoring of accused people who have been granted bail. When it becomes law, it will give Jamaica’s presiding judges the power to order whether a criminal who is granted bail should wear an ankle bracelet or an electronic tracking device. “The wearing by the defendant of an electronic tracking device to enable for the surveillance of the defendant’s movements, being a device in line with such specifications and characteristics as shall be prescribed,” states Section 8 (5c) of the Bill.

Additionally, Section 14 of the Bill states that anybody found guilty of absconding while free on bail might spend up to five years behind bars in a parish court and up to seven years in a circuit court. It’s important to note that this conviction will follow the offense for which the defendant first appeared in court. If a defendant does not return to custody or does not return to custody as soon as practicable after the period originally scheduled for the defendant to return to custody while having a valid cause, the defendant is deemed to have absconded.

In 2012, Patterson and two other people were detained in connection with the homicide. He, however, opted to proceed with a trial while the other two defendants entered guilty pleas and received sentences. Since 2012, the accused has made several court appearances in connection with the case and was present on Thursday at the Supreme Court when the subject was called. At that hearing, his bail was increased with the understanding that he would appear again for the trial on Friday morning.

Justice Pusey requested that Patterson be brought in so that the case could continue, but he was informed that the guy was nowhere to be located.

Zara Lewis, Patterson’s attorney, informed the court that she had been unable to reach Patterson since Friday morning.

“Our group chatted with Milord numerous times. He was last spoken to by our staff at 7:35 on Thursday night, and as of this morning, neither Mr. Patterson nor his family has been reachable. We made every attempt to track him down to the very last minute in the hopes that he would come before your Lordship “said Lewis. Friday.

By directing that a bench warrant be issued for Patterson’s arrest, Justice Pusey postponed the matter until Monday, January 16, when, if Patterson is still a no-show, he will announce his decision.

According to the law, the accused may still be tried and condemned while not present. The trial judge has the last say on that matter.

In August 2012, Graham was assassinated just a week after she arrived in Jamaica from Britain. The missing 56-year-old lawyer’s body was discovered by police on the Caymanas Polo Club’s infield off the Mandela Highway in St. Catherine.

Similar to the posture in which her son Taiwo McKenzie and his girlfriend Jhanel Whyte, the victims of the horrifying 2007 “Good Samaritan” killings, were discovered in November 2007, the corpse was found face down with its neck cut.

Graham, a UN delegate and instructor at the University of Technology, Jamaica, hails from Eltham Acres in Spanish Town, St. Catherine. Police hypothesized that she was kidnapped when she entered her house after visiting a friend at Hope Pastures, St. Andrew.

Her son and his girlfriend were slashed in the throats and dumped in bushes in Mount Salus, St. Andrew, by 24-year-old laborers André Ennis of Havendale, St. Andrew, and Passmore Millings, also known as Shane Brown, of Gregory Park, St. Catherine, just two months prior to her murder. Both men were laborers. Before being eligible for parole, the men each had to serve 50 years in jail. However, after filing an appeal, their sentences were reduced by 10 years.

The pair, known as the good Samaritans, had come to the region with medication and other supplies for Ennis and George Cooper, who they had hit from a motorbike while driving along Border Avenue in St. Andrew a week earlier. George Cooper eventually became a state witness.

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