Since November of last year, Orel Leslie, Tyrone Meighan and Brandon Baptist have been on remand awaiting trial for the murder of 28 year-old James Norales, who was shot to death on November 23, 2012.
They've been in and out of court since then awaiting a preliminary inquiry, to see if the court has enough evidence to try them for the murder.
Today, after several adjournments, the preliminary inquiry was expected to commence once again, the prosecutor told the court he could not move forward.
The families of the accused men, as well as several police officers, expected that the matter was to be struck out again, but the magistrate gave one final adjournment.
And so, while the men were being transported back to the holding cell, they got into a scuffle with those additional officers, who were attempting to re-arrest without knowing that the current case was still live.
Outside of court, we spoke to one of their attorneys about the evidence presented so far:
Arthur Salidivar, Attorney for Tyrone Meighan
"The disclosure that has been presented, there is not sufficient grounds in my estimation, to justify his being remanded on the charges for which were brought by the DPP. What happened was that a week or so ago, an adjournment date was given for today, for the PI to be held. When we arrived at court this morning, the prosecutor was not ready to proceed. As a result of that, the magistrate gave the prosecution additional time this morning, to get itself prepared. After that time had elapsed, the prosecution was still unprepared to proceed. Again, it's quite unusual because we already have disclosure, so we don't expect that they have more evidence to offer than what's already there."
Denise Flowers, Mother of Brandon Baptist
"I think they are trying to force evidence because we are not fools, we know the law good because we are old veterans. I am 46 years old, so they are trying to force evidence, but God takes it's own course, nothing lasts forever, they will come out."
Arthur Salidivar
"Today, the police had additional elements here at the court, anticipating that what was produced in the disclosure would not be sufficient and that the matter would have been thrown out. As a result of that, they would have been in a position to re-arrest immediately, those persons accused. Since they were not inside the court room, they did not know that the matter had been further adjourned and as a result, when the accused persons emerged from the court room, they pounced on them, believing that they were about to leave the precinct of the court, not realizing that they were still in custody, which led to an unfortunate physical altercation, as a result of that confusion."
This evening, we spoke to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Cheryl-Lynn Vidal, who told us that the delay is because her office gave several directives to the investigating officers which were not completed.
She told us that the delay will be dealt with shortly, and it has only been important because her office wants to present an airtight case when the men face trial at the Supreme Court.
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