By Vivian Tyson

Acting Chief Justice, His Hon. Richard Williams intends to bring prosecution against persons who had photographed jury members inspecting a murder site and later posted the images on a popular social networking site.

Judge Williams’ comments came as he was about to ask the jury to enter a not guilty verdict in the Floyd ‘Coffee’ Selver murder trial, which ended on Friday, January 15. Selver was stabbed to death on August 6, 2008. His friend, Casey Stubbs was subsequently charged for the crime.
According to the Acting Chief Justice, such actions could attract charges of contempt of court and possibly perversion of justice. He noted that under no circumstances should photographs be taken in court or when judge or jury goes out on the road to conduct site inspection of a particular scene.

The judge said concerns were raised when the jury visited the Floyd ‘Coffee’ Selver murder scene in the Bight, to analyse the death area so as to make an informed judgment in the matter. But while in the process they were photographed by a person or persons. The picture was later spotted on Facebook, and a report was made to the Judge.
Even though he was yet to find out who actually carried out the act, Acting Chief Justice Williams said he did not believe the perpetrators were members of the media, but when investigations are carried out, whoever is guilty of carrying out such acts, will have action taken against them. 
According to him, the identities - be it names or photo of jurors sitting on a case - should be protected at all times, saying that such impropriety could compromise cases.

He said the Attorney General Chambers would be contacted on the matter and would asked the launch an investigations and make a finding, especially to find out if such actions constitute perversion of justice, while already establishing that the act was contempt of court.