And while it was murder in the city – it was a murder mistrial in Dangriga after a very unusual development in court. The news is that the murder trial of George Pignon had to be aborted this morning after the jury’s foreman was caught sending a love note to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Cheryl-Lynn Branker Taitt. This morning Justice Troadio Gonzalez was about to sum up the case and send it to the jury for deliberations when a female police officer assigned to the court walked over to the DPP with a note telling her that, quote “this is from the ‘head-man’ of the jury.”
The DPP says she immediately stopped the female officer as the prosecutor is strictly not permitted any contact whatsoever with the jury. She says she had no contact with the note and instructed the court marshall to take it to the judge. All parties were called into the judges chambers where he read them note. In it the foreman professed his deep admiration for the DPP. He praised her intelligence and noted also that she had a child and commended her for keeping to her maternal duty while also doing her prosecutors’ duty. For defence counsel Simeon Sampson it was proof of demonstrable bias and so the jury had to discharge and a mistrial was declared.
DPP Branker-Taitt wasn’t the least bit flattered. She told us the first thing that came to mind was that two weeks of courtroom work had come down to a “colossal waste of time.” She adds that the second thing that came to mind was how embarrassing it all was.
Pignon will be retried in November. He is charged for the murder of his common-law wife Zoila Parham in Punta Gorda on July 5th 2008. Pignon maintains the gun accidentally fired while he was cleaning it but police say it was murder.
