Prison Court docket “A” Choose Roosevelt Z. Willie has denied a request by protection attorneys within the Capitol Constructing arson case for a stay televised listening to.
By Lincoln G. Peters
Monrovia, September 5, 2025: Choose Willie gave the ruling on Thursday, September 4, following heated arguments over the defendant’s request that the trial be televised.
The defendants had requested that the trial be televised to permit everybody to witness the case from varied areas, thereby enhancing transparency, equity, public curiosity, and the general transparency of the proceedings.
Making the movement, lead authorized counsel representing the defendants, Cllr. Arthur Tamba Johnson argued that stay protection would improve public belief within the judicial course of and assist counter misinformation and political narratives surrounding the case.
Cllr. Johnson referenced a precedent the place stay broadcasting was permitted by the Supreme Court docket within the In Re petition filed by the defendants.
“This case isn’t just in regards to the people on trial; it’s about public confidence within the rule of legislation. In a democracy, particularly in issues of public curiosity, justice should not solely be performed, nevertheless it have to be seen to be performed,” he acknowledged.
However, countering the protection, prosecution attorneys requested that the court docket deny and dismiss the movement, arguing that it was filed in unhealthy religion.
Cllr. Richard Scott, one of many prosecutors, acknowledged that recording or broadcasting court docket proceedings encourages grandstanding by attorneys, distracts witnesses, and disrupts the court docket’s perform. He added that televising trials runs opposite to present court docket guidelines, which prohibit such protection.
In the meantime, after listening to each events’ arguments and reviewing the legislation quotation, Choose Roosevelt Z. Willie denied the protection request and granted the prosecution’s movement, stating that the protection request runs opposite to Rule 11 of the Supreme Court docket of Liberia.
“This Court docket is not going to enable that. The Supreme Court docket has handed this rule that no case needs to be televised in Rule 11 of the Supreme Court docket. I’m not going to be the one to say that we must always file this case or take a photograph on this Courtroom as a result of all the attorneys know that, and I hope that nobody is concerned with that as a result of if it had been to come back up, we’ll certainly examine. That utility is hereby denied, and we will now proceed to what we’re right here for right this moment, AND SO ORDERED,” he acknowledged.
On the identical time, Choose Willie reserved ruling on the protection movement to suppress the proof submitted to the court docket by the prosecution, primarily based on one of many counts throughout the protection movement alleging that the defendants, whereas behind bars had been sodomized and tortured. He acknowledged that there’s a want for additional readability earlier than making a remaining dedication.
The a part of the choose’s ruling dates from the final sitting on September 2, 2025, when the protection Workforce filed a Movement to suppress the proof introduced to them by the Prosecution, and the Prosecution subsequently resisted.
The court docket additional indicated that, after listening to the Events, it acknowledged that it’ll make a ruling on the Movement to suppress proof that was resisted right this moment, Thursday, September 4, 2025.
“When the Court docket appeared on the grounds and the explanations that had been acknowledged for which this Court docket ought to suppress the invention or the proof introduced to the Protection, the Court docket discovered that nearly all the grounds had been primarily based on legislation points, however the Court docket realized that there’s one floor that’s factual, and that floor is torture and sodomy,” the court docket added
Due to this fact, Choose Willie identified that the Court docket determined to not give the ruling on Thursday, however to search out out by way of medical investigation as as to if the Defendants had been tortured and sodomized.
“Due to this fact, the Court docket hereby orders the Clerk to do a communication to the John F. Kennedy Medical Middle authorizing, that means by way of the State, the Monrovia Central Jail to have the six (6) Defendants taken to the John F. Kennedy Medical Middle to research by way of Medical Examination to search out out as as to if or not these Defendants had been tortured and sodomized. Mentioned communication needs to be written to the Administration or handed as is generally performed for all Defendants of the Monrovia Central Jail by way of this Court docket to look at these Defendants and report back to this Court docket on or earlier than Tuesday, September 9, 2025. In the meantime, the ultimate ruling in these proceedings can be made on Wednesday, September 10, 2025, at 12:30 pm immediate. AND IT IS HEREBY SO ORDERED,” the court docket ordered.
Consequently, to which ruling of the court docket, the Protection Counsel excepts partly as to the JFK to conduct the medical examination of the Defendants, which is a authorities hospital.
“Counsel requests an impartial medical expert, psychologist, or psychiatrist to medically look at the Defendants with particular regard to the sodomy and the torture of the Protection. And submits.” He famous. -Edited by Othello B. Garblah.
