DPP knocks "archaic" Evidence Act

BY STEVEN JACKSON Business reporter jacksons@jamaicaobserver.com

Friday, December 12, 2014    

Paula Llewellyn is lamenting a provision in the Evidence Act requiring the State to prove that computers being used to generate evidence are actually working.

The requirement, she argued, makes it difficult to submit computer evidence in financial crime cases.

“Right now, it is extremely archaic and very, very cumbersome. The prosecution has to prove that the computer was working. Can you imagine that? If the computer wasn’t working, then the material wouldn’t have been generated,” Llewellyn, the director of public prosecutions (DPP), told the third Annual Anti-Money Laundering (AML)/Counter-Financing of Terrorism (CFT) Conference on Wednesday.

The conference was held at Knutsford Court Hotel in Kingston by the Jamaica Bankers’ Association and Jamaica Institute of Financial Services under the theme ‘Financial Integrity – The Pulse of Economic Prosperity’.

Llewellyn argued that the law needed to be changed to make it easier to prosecute some of these matters. She said that in most other countries the presumption, under the law, is that the computer is in good working order, and if the defence says otherwise then the evidential burden shifts to them.

Llewellyn acknowledged that Justice Minister Mark Golding aims to get the Evidence Act amended, but said that he faces challenges within Parliament.

“It is not having an easy passage in Parliament because clearly, on both sides of the House — in the upper and lower — you have the worthy members of [the] defence bar,” she said.

In order to prove that the computer was in good working order, the office of the DPP would usually need to contact the person who serviced or installed the computer, then have that person appear as a witness.

Llewellyn asked Andrea Martin-Swaby from the Office of the DPP to describe the procedure. “As opposed to merely calling the compliance officer who would have checked the system and been familiar, we would perhaps have to call the person who services the system,” said Martin-Swaby.

“I know that can cause some undue pressure on the actual witness [to have] three witnesses come to establish this. And having done so, we would have to call other witnesses as well who would have had to generate the information and then establish that this was in working order at the particular time,” Martin-Swaby added.

Llewellyn also appealed to investigators and compliance officers to get as much evidence as possible to secure convictions.

“The money laundering cases have to compete against offences against the person matters, and other matters where sometimes persons are in custody and sometimes the capacity of our courts have not kept pace over the last 20 or 30 years,” Llewellyn said.

“We have to ensure that the evidential material collated is so tight, that once you disclose the statements to the defence, they have no other choice but to …force the accused to plead guilty,” she said.

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DPP knocks "archaic" Evidence Act

New evidence prompts "forensic dig" for Maryland sisters missing since "75 - FBI ups reward in case of Mississippi girl burned to death

Katherine Lyon (left) and Sheila Lyon (right)

BEDFORD, Va. –  Armed with what one official described as new information, federal and state authorities searched a site on a Virginia mountain Monday for the remains of two Maryland sisters who disappeared 40 years ago.

Bedford County Sheriff Mike Brown said at a news conference that the “forensic dig” on Taylor’s Mountain could take a couple of days. He said a Federal Bureau of Investigation evidence recovery team, a Radford University forensic pathologist and state and local authorities were involved in the search for the remains of 10-year-old Katherine Lyon and 12-year-old Sheila Lyon.

Brown said new information prompted the dig, but he declined to be specific.

Asked if it appears human remains will be found, Brown said: “We would hope so.”

The Lyon sisters disappeared in 1975 after walking to a shopping mall in Wheaton, Maryland. A search for clues has been ongoing since September on Taylor’s Mountain in the Thaxton area of Bedford County.

Authorities have named Richard Allen Welch Sr. and his nephew, Lloyd Lee Welch, as persons of interest in the case. Montgomery County, Maryland, Police Chief Russ Hamill said in October that authorities believed that Richard Welch was a security guard in the Wheaton area at the time of the disappearance and that the family owned property in Bedford County. Lloyd Welch is a child sex offender in a Delaware prison.

Neither man has been charged in the Lyon case, but Richard Welch’s wife, Patricia Jean Welch of Hyattsville, Maryland, was indicted last month on a charge of lying to a grand jury.

Bedford County Commonwealth’s Attorney Randy Krantz urged any residents with information about the case to come forward.

“Our mission focus is to bring these children home if at all possible,” Krantz said.

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New evidence prompts "forensic dig" for Maryland sisters missing since "75 - FBI ups reward in case of Mississippi girl burned to death

Cop accused of fabricating evidence in Vybz Kartel trial

BY PAUL HENRY Co-ordinator — Crime/Court Desk henryp@jamaicaobserver.com

Monday, February 03, 2014    

PROSECUTION witness Sergeant Patrick Linton was last Friday accused of fabricating evidence in the Vybz Kartel murder trial. He was tackled on a number of issues, including inconsistencies in his statements and his failure to verify information from a BlackBerry cellphone with its maker Research in Motion (RIM).

Vybz Kartel, whose real name is Adidja Palmer; Andre ‘Mad Suss’ St John; Shane Williams; Shawn ‘Shawn Storm’ Campbell; and Kahira Jones have been on trial in the Home Circuit Court for the alleged August 16, 2011 murder of Clive ‘Lizard’ Williams over the disappearance of two illegal guns.

On Friday, Linton was told by attorney Michael Lorne, who is representing Campbell, that the information he got from a BlackBerry phone in the matter was made up. However, this was denied by the former Police Cybercrimes Unit boss.

But Lorne continued, suggesting that messages discussing arrangements for an accused in the matter to go to Cuba and other places were made up by Linton and his colleagues, to which the sergeant responded, “No, My Lord.”

At another point, Lorne asked Linton if he had gone to RIM to verify information he got from the phone, but Linton said that RIM wouldn’t have given out the information due to privacy issues. However, Lorne pointed out that the information could have been had with a warrant, and when asked if he was familiar with the company’s privacy policy Linton said ‘no’.

Lorne then suggested that Linton did not seek to verify the information with RIM (which is now known as BlackBerry) because he knew that “some of the information” he provided to the court wasn’t found on the phone given to him. But Linton said that all the information was “extracted” from the phone.

The attorney suggested that the messages with the name ‘Shawn’ in them were also made up and designed to implicate the accused man, but Linton denied the suggestions. Linton said, however, that the ‘Shawn’ name isn’t mentioned anywhere in his digital forensic report of November 2011.

On another point, Linton said he didn’t record on his list of items the SD card off which he lifted the information.

Also on Friday, the jurors reacted in apparent surprise when Lorne brought out that Linton had said in a statement that he had used a particular machine, that was not designed for law enforcement purposes, to lift the information from the SD card. But Linton said he had made a mistake when he said he used that machine and that he had corrected it in his further statement.

“At least 10 times, Mr Linton, you made a mistake in your report?” Lorne asked.

“Yes, counsel,” Linton replied.

But Lorne suggested that Linton sought to change his statement regarding the machine because some of the data he said he took from the phone could not have been lifted using the machine he said he used in the first statement. However, Linton said that the machine named in the further statement was the one he used. (Reporters have been asked not to name the machine used in the matter.)

Meanwhile, Linton was questioned at length by attorney Tamika Harris, who is representing St John, as to whether he could say for certain that markings he saw on the arms of a person on a video were really tattoos and not body paint. Harris’ probing of the issue was meant to show that a person cannot really be identified by tattoos.

The trial continues tomorrow with Linton’s cross-examination by Harris.

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Cop accused of fabricating evidence in Vybz Kartel trial