In Mercenary Case: 18 persons peremptorily rejected as Jurors Eighteen persons were on Friday, March 14, 2014 peremptorily rejected by defense and prosecution counsels to serve as jurors in the ongoing Mercenary Case. Eighteen defendants are standing trial for their alleged involvement in the war in neighboring Ivory. But the defendants have all pleaded not guilty to the Crime of Mercenarism. The defendants are on trial at the Criminal Court “D” at the Temple of Justice, which is presided over by a new Judge, Emery Paye. According to the Black Law Dictionary, peremtory is a challenge in law which refers to a right in jury selection for the attorneys to reject a certain number of potential. State lawyers prosecuting the 18 alleged mercenaries are: Cllr Theophilous Gould, Attorney David Wouah, Montserrado County Attorney, Cllr. J. DakuMulbah among others. On the other hand, lawyers defending the alleged 18 mercenaries are: Cllr. Dempster Brown and former Solicitor General of Liberia, Cllr. TaiwonGongloe among others. Jurors that were selected to sit on the panel were questioned about their names, addresses, educational background and were also tested whether they could spell the word guilty. Though most of them answered the testing questions, they were all rejected for reasons best known to the defense and prosecution lawyers. Legal minds believe that jurors who will be finally selected to serve on the panel will be under a watchful eye to avoid what happened when a juror “lied” to the Judge. It can be recalled that on October 4, 2013, Judge Yussif D. Kaba ordered the entire Panel Jury disbanded and sentenced one person to jail for lying to the court about his real name. According to Judge Kaba, Juror JeremeyDweh lied that his full name was Jeremey Neufville. Evidence was produced that showed his real name to be Jeremy Dweh and not JeremeyNeufville as indicated by the Juror. Meanwhile, the trial is expected to continue today, Monday, March 17, 2014 at 10:00 AM. news.heritageliberia.net/index.php/inside-heritage/legal-matters/2926-in-mercenary-case-18-persons-peremptorily-rejected-as-jurors
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 20:41:14 +0000
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