Tonight, coffin carpenter turned Kolbe inmate, Alexander Holder remains behind bars.
But his family, his former employer, and his attorneys are hoping to get him sooner rather than later.
That's because of an urgent appeal that was filed on his behalf in the Supreme Court today by attorney OJ Elrington. We caught up with the attorney this morning, and he told us more about the case of the special needs man who has the sympathy of the nation.
OJ Elrington, Attorney-At-Law
"We've done it before as I indicated to you earlier this year we've done a similar matter with Mr Dela Rosa I believe that was his name and so I don't know that it is necessary of course it is any assistance that he can be rendered to try to have this matter corrected is useful and welcomed."
"Obviously the magistrate has the jurisdiction to when it is that you if it is a genuine guilty plea that you have the jurisdiction to render a more lenient sentence. That is one of the considerations in a judge making their decision in so far as what is the sentence that they are going to levy on an individual however in this situation it is our position that twofold, that one taken that Mr. holder did not have the necessary capacity in the first place to even make a decision so far as to innocence and guilty he did not have the ability to do so and you will find in many situations normally and the proper and right thing was for there to have been a psychiatric evaluation of the individual before rendering a decision and equally important is that on many occasions where an accused is before a judge and the accused offers an explanation or try to explain why it is that they took certain actions the magistrate would understand that they are effectively giving a defence and so essentially even just saying the words that I am guilty or I accept what I have done is not enough. That is, you cannot give a conditional guilty plea. It is either you are saying you are innocent or guilty. I've seen it time and time again where a magistrate says no if you are offering an explanation, you cannot offer an explanation. If that is the case we are going to trial because that is essential that you are saying you are not guilty. But we are human and we are to errors and that is why we have the appeal process and that is essentially what we are going to do to reconsider the decision that they have made and allow for us to have the supreme court look at the matter."
As we told you last night efforts are also underway to try and bring the matter before the rarely convened Belize Advisory Council.
