Murder accused to remain in jail after 2 decades

MURDER accused Kevon Nurse will remain in jail a little longer, as the Court of Appeal has extended the stay of a judge’s order which would have led to his being released from prison after over two decades.

On Friday, Justice Malcolm Holdip gave a ruling on the stay of execution that the Director of Public Prosecutions had sought of Justice Eleanor Donaldson-Honeywell’s decision to quash his indictment.

Holdip ordered that the extension granted on August 1 should remain in place until the DPP’s appeal is heard and determined.

The appeal will be heard on October 25.

On July 5, Donaldson-Honeywell ruled the murder indictment against Nurse, of Laventille, should be set aside on the basis of extraordinary delay. She had granted a 28-day stay of her ruling to allow the DPP sufficient time to consider an appeal.

Donaldson-Honeywell’s stay would have expired on August 2.

On July 30, attorneys representing the DPP filed a notice of appeal, requesting an expedited hearing and a temporary stay of the judge's order.

Nurse, also known as Kevon Benoit, has appeared before some 25 judges for five trials and status hearings, and was expected to face a sixth trial before he challenged the Director of Public Prosecutions' intent to proceed.

In his appeal, the DPP contends that the trial judge erred in law in substituting her decision on the merits of the case against Nurse and usurping the exercise of the DPP's power under Section 90 of the Constitution.

His lawyers intend to argue that the trial judge wrongly applied the principle for establishing a stay of a prosecution as an abuse of process, as in the Nurse case there was insufficient basis for the exceptional remedy of reviewing a prosecutorial decision, among other complaints, including parallel remedies available to the prisoner at trial.

Nurse is accused of murdering his uncle, Lester Ash, on Christmas Day, 2000, at Success, Laventille.

In 2019, Justice Lisa Ramsumair-Hinds ordered a retrial for Nurse after jurors returned deadlocked after four hours of deliberations.

Ramsumair-Hinds was the fifth judge before whom Nurse went on trial. He had also appeared in 2000 before Justice Rajendra Narine; in 2003 before Justice Paula-Mae Weekes; before Justice Hayden St Clair Douglas; and again before Justice Alice Yorke-Soo Hon.

His trials before Narine, St Clair Douglas and Yorke-Soo Hon were aborted before they went to the jury for deliberation.

His trial before Weekes led to his conviction on June 18, 2003, but a retrial was ordered when he was successful at his appeal.

Nurse also appeared before at least 20 judges for pre-trial hearings and his case was adjourned either because the judges had to recuse themselves, Nurse was unrepresented, or either side needed more time w because of the unavailability of witnesses.

In October 2020, Nurse received the court’s permission to proceed with his judicial review claim. In it he asked for a review of the DPP's decision to proceed with the sixth trial.

In asking for the indictment against him to be permanently stayed, he complained that the continued prosecution was an abuse of process.

Nurse complained of the mental anguish he has suffered throughout the years in preparing for his trials while maintaining his innocence and of “participating in the criminal justice process without seemingly an end in sight.”

Nurse is represented by attorney Shaun C Morris. The DPP is being represented by attorneys Ian Benjamin, SC, and Nairob Smart of the Chief State Solicitor's Office in the appeal.