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http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/nart?id=161652575WHY I FREED BRAD BOYCEVolney: I cannot be blamedRia Taitt Political Editor
Wednesday, May 5th 2010
UNITED NATIONAL CONGRESS (COP) St Joseph candidate Herbert Volney, a former High Court judge, yesterday defended his 1998 judgment which led to the freeing of Brad Boyce, saying that if people knew the facts of that case, they would understand why he ruled the way he did.
The Brad Boyce case, in which Volney in 1998 directed a nine-member jury to return a not guilty verdict in favour of Boyce, who was on trial for unlawfully killing Jason Johnson, was resurrected when a small group of protestors stormed the UNC meeting at St Joseph on Monday night during Volney’s address.
Speaking to the Express in a telephone interview yesterday, Volney said:
’People should read my judgment and they would quite well understand why I ruled as I had. Most people don’t recall the facts of the Brad Boyce trial. It was a case of mismanagement and a matter of intervening cause of death-broncho pneumonia, he said.
’The person (Johnson) died from something totally unrelated to the initial injury. And the onus was on the State..to negate that, that intervening event was not the substantial cause of death. The State had failed to do so,’ he added.
DEFENDS JUDGMENT: Herbert Volney
’The guy (Johnson) died not from the injuries sustained (from the blow from Boyce) but from broncho-pneumonia, (which came) because the nurses put a feeding tube down into his lungs and because of all the food that went down into his lungs. They placed him on a ventilator and the ventilator malfunctioned. And the State had to prove that it was not medical negligence on the part of the San Fernando Hospital that had been the substantial cause of death. And the State failed to do so. So I upheld the submission of no case. People don’t seem to understand the law. They just see the result and they conclude ’travesty’ (of justice).
He stated further that his decision in this case was reviewed by the Court of Appeal. The State lost its appeal against his decision and they (Court of Appeal) did not order a retrial, he noted. The State appealed again to the Privy Council which did not order a retrial, Volney said. ’The system has three layers and I was just the first. I can’t be blamed for the eventual so-called travesty of justice. There are two courts of review after me. Why don’t they (the protestors and his detractors) blame the other courts including the Court of Appeal in which three judges reviewed my decision? Why don’t they blame them? Why didn’t they order a retrial? Why don’t they blame the Privy Council for not ordering a retrial? Why are they only training their guns on me and not at the Court of Appeal or the Privy Council? They want to blame me because it is expedient to them to blame me,’ Volney stated.
The Privy Council did not order a retrial because of the nine-year lapse of time since the incident occurred. -See box
He added: ’Our system is three strikes. Three strikes! Not one’.
Volney also responded to concerns about his discussing the Naraynsingh case on the political platform. ’That matter was dead. It is finished, out of the court system. I happened to know what happened behind the scenes, because it was quite clear from the evidence. And I am quite capable of commenting on the evidence because the matter is at an end. It is not sub judice,’ Volney said.
However Volney, who gave a very fiery address on Monday night, said that the rhetoric of his first political speech would not be reproduced in his subsequent addresses on the platform. ’The rhetoric of that first meeting is not going to be the way I shall be speaking hereinafter. I am going to be dealing with issues of crime and law and order’.
On his statements on Attorney General John Jeremie, Volney said: ’Mr Jeremie is a former senator, he would be out of Parliament momentarily. I don’t care to comment on him. I have said what I had to. He is not worth my effort. I would be talking on the platform on crime, good governance of the criminal justice system and public order.
Asked about his rubber snake which he so dramatically pulled out and which looked so real, he laughed and said it belonged to his six-year-old son.
On the protestors, Volney said the Opposition intelligence indicated that the protestors were mobilised and gathered at the PNM St Joseph office.
He said should a similar situation reoccur he believes that the police would be better able to deal with the situation than they did on Monday night. ’I think that the police did not know the election law and they felt that they could not have acted as they ought to have. But what happened there- is conduct that is likely to result in a breach of peace. Because it almost come to that,’ he said.
