Rebecca Middleton is victimized TWICE by the Court of Bermuda
WASHINGTON - Bermuda's Supreme Court on Friday rejected an appeal by the father of slain Canadian teenager Rebecca Middleton to order a new investigation into the decade-old case - despite admitting prosecutors made grave errors in the initial prosecution.
Judge Richard Ground, Bermuda's chief justice, expressed "great personal sympathy" for Middleton's parents, but ruled no further charges could be brought against the girl's two alleged killers.
In an 18-page decision, Bermuda's top judge said the primary suspects in Middleton's brutal rape and murder were protected by strict "double jeopardy" rules barring prosecutors from bringing new charges for crimes arising from the same set of facts.
In 1998, members of the jury were taken to the beach where the rape and murder of Rebecca Middleton took place. "Prosecutorial error or oversight is not a good reason," Ground wrote. "Despite eloquent arguments advanced to the contrary, it is not permissible for me to ignore or modify" the law.
Middleton was on vacation in Bermuda when she was discovered lying partially naked on a deserted road with 35 stab wounds.
The investigation later determined she had been restrained and repeatedly raped during the assault. Despite strong circumstantial and forensic evidence linking two men - Kirk Mundy and Justis Smith - to the killing, neither of the accused was ever convicted of a serious crime.
Before waiting for the results of forensic evidence, prosecutors cut a deal with Mundy to plead guilty. He served five years in prison for accessory to murder, in exchange for testimony implicating Smith in Middleton's death.
Smith was acquitted of murder after the judge in his trial directed the jury to acquit him - a decision later described as "astonishing" by Bermuda's privy council. Bermuda's director of public prosecutions, in a March 2006 decision, determined any new charges would constitute an "abuse of process" against the two men.
Test results had linked Mundy directly to the crime. His semen was found inside Middleton and lawyers have dismissed his claim of consensual sex as preposterous. But "the Crown ... remains bound by its original agreement," Ground wrote. "There is no new evidence now available that would change that ... because Mundy always admitted presence at the scene and (sexual) intercourse, further DNA evidence which now links him to the crime would add nothing."
Despite the botched investigation and prosecution into Middleton's death, Ground said he agreed with earlier findings that "it is the law against double jeopardy, not any want of evidence, which debars further proceedings" in the case.
(entire article)
Read the case history of the Rebecca Middleton case HERE
Read the case history of the Rebecca Middleton case HERE
1 comment:
There is no justice for Rebecca's brutal murder. Yes, it sounds exactly like Aruba. It's a slap in the face of ANYONE who may comtemplate visiting those islands. A serious tourism boycot would devastate the pocketbooks of these governments, but I don't see that happening either. I wonder why....shouldn't we launch those boycot campaigns, if for nothing else, but to bring the awareness back to the public of the injustices they have already commited toward other tourists? There has certainly not been a change in policy. It's clear the officials are interested only in the money these families spend on those islands. They DO NOT give a rat's ass if you or your family members are attacked. They simply don't care.
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