The Rastafari Community is taking Attorney General Dale Marshall to task over the continued delay in the constitutional case relating to their right to use marijuana in the privacy of their homes. In a press release issued yesterday, they charged that while Marshall had been condemning the time it was taking for cases to be resolved, their matter had been adjourned until next year, the fourth in three years, because …
The State has been ordered to pay former murder accused Pedro Deroy Ellis $75 000 for unlawfully detaining him for 18 days.High Court judge Madam Justice Shona Griffith on Monday awarded Ellis $50 000 in non-pecuniary damages and $25 000 in vindicatory damages, saying that his constitutional rights had been breached when he was remanded to prison after being found not guilty of murder.“This is a case in which an award of damages is necessary and appropriate . . . . This is a claim for deprivation of liberty,” the judge said.In 2019, Ellis went on trial for the May 5, 2013 stabbing death of Antonio Harewood. At the end of that trial, the 12-member jury found him not guilty of murder but could not reach a verdict on manslaughter.At the end of the proceedings, Justice Carlisle Greaves, who had presided over the matter, remanded Ellis to HMP Dodds while a decision was made on whether there would be a retrial.