He was asked to 'trail blaze' and do what no other judge has ever done but this morning Chief Magistrate Herbert Lord stayed away from those so-called uncharted waters when he denied bail to the Brown brothers. So tonight Andrew "Pawpa" Brown and his older brother Floyd are spending their 38th night at the Hattieville Prison and they can expect to be there for at least another month.
In the decision read this morning, he said the extradition treaty is paramount and so the court declines to use its inherent jurisdiction to grant bail. Brown brothers' attorney Richard "Dickie" Bradley argued last week that bail should be granted since an appeal to the Supreme Court by Solicitor General Elson Kaseke, over a piece of evidence excluded by Lord, would unnecessarily delay the case and deny the brothers their freedom.
Lead attorney for the Brown Brothers Dean Barrow accepted the ruling but vowed to return in a month with another bail application.
Dean Barrow, Attorney for Brown Brothers
"The Magistrate, very properly, was concerned about not violating the treaty obligations. If you look at the treaty, the treaty provides for when somebody is arrested for extradition purposes, on a provisional warrant, for that person to be held for sixty days. So in a sense if the Magistrate is in fact saying that if he gives bail before sixty days he would be going against the treaty provisions, I think he is right. After sixty days, in my view, it is a brand new ball game. That is why I agreed to the adjournment until the 19th of September because the 18th will mark exactly sixty days since they would have been in custody. I think at that stage either a renewed application before him or an application to the supreme court will be made for bail and I would think that there's a much better chance of succeeding then.
I've explained to them that really we can't fault the Magistrate. Given the treaty provisions that talks about sixty days, I don't fault the Magistrate."
Keith Swift,
How is the family feeling right now, we observed the looks on their faces when the Magistrate made his ruling?
Dean Barrow,
"Well of course they have to be disappointed,. Their son, their brothers, remain in jail but I was very pleased too that the Magistrate, on his own initiative, raised the issue of the humanitarian consideration and agreed to have them visit their father. I think that's the best that could have been done in the circumstances. I repeat that I have no difficulty with the Magistrate's decision, I don't think it can be said that he was wrong, we will come back after the sixty days."
As Barrow mentioned, this morning Solicitor General Kaseke agreed to allow the brothers to visit their father who is battling cancer in the hospital. The extradition case has been adjourned until September 19th.
The Brown brothers are wanted in Florida for allegedly importing 18.1 kilos of cocaine into Miami's Port Everglades in November of 1999. They were indicted by a Florida Grand Jury in November of 2003.
