Jamaican Dancehall Star Vybz Kartel's 2014 Murder Conviction Overturned on Appeal

A London appeals court on Thursday (March 14th) overturned the murder conviction of Jamaican dance star Vybz Kartel, ruling that the 2014 guilty verdict was tainted by allegations that a juror tried to bribe others.

The ruling came more than a decade after Kartel – a popular Jamaican artist who has worked with Rihanna, Jay-Z and others – and three others were convicted in Kingston, Jamaica, of the 2011 murder of an associate of Clive “Lizard” Williams , whose body was never found.

In the ruling, the appeals court ruled that the judge overseeing the 2014 trial had made a “fatal” mistake: He allowed the jury to reach a verdict despite news that one of the jurors had tried to bribe others. This juror was not removed, and soon after the jury returned a guilty verdict.

“There should have been no question of allowing Superintendent X to continue to serve on the jury,” the appeals court wrote Thursday. “To allow Superintendent X to continue to serve on the jury is fatal to the safety of the convictions that followed. This was a violation of the defendants' fundamental right to a fair hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal.”

The decision was made by the judicial committee of the Privy Council, a London court that decides on appeals of last resort by some Commonwealth of Nations countries, including Jamaica.

The ruling overturned Cartel's conviction and 32-year prison sentence, but he could face a retrial on the same charges. The appeals court said the Jamaican courts would decide whether such a trial would take place.

Kartel – along with co-defendants Shawn Campbell, Kahira Jones and Andre St John – faced a 64-day trial in early 2014 on charges they killed Williams after he failed to return two unlicensed firearms loaned to him.

But on the final day of the trial, the judge was told that Juror X had tried to “persuade another member of the jury” to acquit the accused by offering bribes of Jamaican dollars 500,000 (about US$3,200).

After receiving this information, the judge was faced with an unusually difficult choice. Because another juror had already been dismissed on a separate matter, the only options were to end the trial altogether after weeks of testimony or allow the case to go forward to a verdict.

“It may have been possible simply to discharge one juror and allow the remaining members of the jury to reach verdicts [but] that was not possible here,” the appeals court wrote Thursday.

Although the appeals court said it had “considerable sympathy with the judge's dilemma”, it said the decision to proceed with the troubled juror was a “serious irregularity” that would result in “injustice” if allowed.

“In reaching this conclusion, the Board is mindful of the very serious consequences that can result from discharging a juror shortly before the end of a long and complex criminal trial,” the appeals court wrote, noting that England has statutes aimed at dealing with such situations.

“However, in the absence of such a provision – and there is no such provision in Jamaica – there will be cases in which, as in the present case, the court will have no alternative but to discharge a jury and terminate the trial in order to protecting the integrity of the jury trial system,” the court wrote.