Day 11 - Justice? You be the judge.

Day 11

Time, spent. Today needs its own book.

Today I was awoken again. Rudely. This time it was not a rooster. It was first tables being shoved around on tile floors at 6 in the morning, and then the twilight of my curtained wood and tile room pierced by the bleating of an incessant sheep that sounded like it had been dared by the other sheep to stand outside my window and make noise. I laughed at the irony of the situation, because my last thoughts when I went to sleep were “what could possibly wake me up here?” I could not get back to sleep, listen and you’ll find out why. Now we sit here, watching a blood red and azure sky blaze goodbye to the sinking sun, with mixed feelings about what we have accomplished today. I sit and think: “was it worth it?”. The sentence is pregnant with triple, quadruple, quintuple meaning. Now I will go back in time, Tarantino style (Dane Cook style), and when I get to the end you will know why, and you too will ask yourself “Was it worth it?” After the rude sheep got paid off for taking the dare, I was stirred earlier than expected by my father. He told me he had bad news, that the police had called and that we were required to attend the hearing for the car break in. We sped down the mountain road from Laudat toward Roseau after a delayed breakfast, attempting to make the 9:00 hearing on time. We navigated through the hot, busy one way streets, a far cry from the cold, rain torrent plagued heights of Laudat. We arrived, on shaky directions, at the cream building labeled “High court of Justice”. Along the side of the building flanked by a dirty alleyway was a cream stucco wall, with two doorways into the building labeled “Court No. 1 and 2”, respectively. The doors opened at 9:15, and we walked in. We spent the morning watching the proceedings. First, 20 young black men shuffled up to the defendant’s stand, and shuffled back away, all after the same conversation. Some with shoes, some without, some with beards some without, some with grey hair, some without. The judge would ask them if they had someone to bail them out, and each has his own reply. Some said no, some tried to bail themselves out, unsuccessfully, some said yes but had no one to bail them out, and one man’s partner showed up but did not have the money. 10,000 EC dollars is not a small amount. The next was disturbing. For the next couple of hours, while we sat and listened, we watched a rape case unfold. A 15 year old girl described in detail her raping by a much older male, one who had family ties with her. The disturbing story was told and told again by the girl, repeated back by the judge, who functioned also as her own stenographer in the hot, run down court room. We sat behind a rickety gated fence made of flakily painted two by fours. We sat, sore assed, on wooden benches, watching the magistrate/judge attempt to serve justice. The six wobbly ceiling fans were all that were keeping sanity in check as the judge urged the girl on the stand to be concise with her answers. We sat until 12:30 and listened to this case, shocked at our own surroundings.
At 1:00 our case began. Bethan, one of the perpetrators, was brought onto the defendant’s stand. My father was called up to deliver his testimony, to describe in detail the events of the day up to and after the point of the break in. Bethan was asked by the judge if he had any questions for my father, as the legal proceedings in this country reqire the defendant to have the right of cross-examining the plaintiff. He barely understood the judges repeated efforts to get him to exercise this right, and the case moved on. After the Prosecutor finished asking the questions, my father was dismissed from the stand. The next phase of the trial required the officer that worked out of the station just outside Sineku to deliver his report. He took the stand, swore his oath, and began to orate the events of the case. He described our pulling up to the station with the damaged vehicle, his trip back to Sineku, his apprehension in the middle of the night of the sleeping Bethan, and Bethan’s leading him to the woods after admitting that he took the bag. Bethan, however, maintained that he found our vehicle with a broken window, and that he simply pulled the bag from the roof of the car. The officer did not believe a word of it, and made it known. After he delivered his testimony, the judge asked Bethan again if he had any questions. Bethan was as dumbfounded as before. He then gave Bethan three choices. 1) Remain silent. 2) Give his defense. 3) Be Cross examined by the Prosecutor. He chose to remain on his stand. The judge read him, for the third time, his three charges. The officer, George, now a good friend of ours, had charged Bethan 3 times, in order to give him three chances to confess. Bethan maintained that he’d found the empty bag, as stated, but the fact remained that he’d hidden it in the woods, and the officers had to wake him up at night to get it. The judge repeated these things to Bethan, and told him clearly that she didn’t believe a word of his story, on account of his hiding the bag. Why would he hide it if he didn’t break into the car? What made him think the police would be after him for it? We got goose bumps as we watched the judge callously tell him what she thought about the whole thing, and prepare to coldly hand out the sentence. She told him that tourism is the foundation that Dominica rests on, and that to commit crimes against others, especially tourists, was something she abhorred. My Goosebumps melted as my blood boiled when I saw the judge wave a pink piece of paper at him.
“And it has come to my attention, Mr. Bethan, that the last three offenses you have been charged with were all also against tourists. Including badgering, harassment, and theft.”
“This is why,” she continued “I think you are telling fibs, and I don’t believe a word of your story. Now if you can tell me one reason why I shouldn’t send you to jail then tell me now.”
Befan had no reply but the lie he’d been telling all along.
The judge handed out the sentence. “For the charge of the theft of the backpack, you will serve a sentence of two years. Do you understand the charges Mr. Bethan?” He swallowed and nodded. “For the charge of the theft of the shoes and watch you will serve a second sentence of two years, do you understand the charges Mr. Bethan?” We watched with mixed feelings as Bethan nodded again, looking up at the ceiling - now tears welling up in eyes that had thus far shown no emotion. “For the charge of malicious damage to the window of the car you will serve another 6 months. These three sentences are to be served consecutively, that is you will serve the first of two years, the second of two years, and the third of six months, all in a row with now pause. Do you understand the charges Mr. Bethan?” He accepted with an imperceptible nod of his head, now emotionally detached from his surroundings. The court adjourned, and we had tears in our eyes too. We could not believe a boy of 24, the same age as I, could be put away for so long – could make such a big mistake. The only time I felt like I backed this harsh punishment is when I thought back to his previous offenses. I thought of how I was a victim, a target, not safe because I was from Canada. I felt like I wanted to strangle him. I thought of what I would say to him when the court adjourned. The words “Have a nice nap” were all that came to my mind and floated around in my head, awkwardly dominating all that I was thinking. The judge made him face us and apologize, and through his lying eyes he told us he was sorry. I wanted to believe him, and because I tried so hard I kept my mouth shut when the officers escorted him past our bench, out of the court room. The court adjourned, and we thanked the judge and George, our officer, heartily. We walked out of the courtroom at 3:30 – emotionally drained and thinking about freedom. When you see these things happen first hand, and witness the lengths the upholders of the law must go through to serve justice, this is the kind of thing you think about. When you find out that Nock, his accomplice, being tried at the same time in Court no. 1, also got 4 years, and how Bethan will walk out of jail – again – when he is almost 29, a critical period in his life completely over, taken away, like a mini death sentence that he gets to regret afterward, you wonder one thing. Was it worth it? In order of importance, from z to a: Was it worth sacrificing a day of my vacation for this? We have precious days to spend in a place we will never see again. We have spent hours at two separate police stations. Now Bethan has stolen the worst possible thing other than our sense of security here: He has stolen a whole day of our experiences together. Was it worth Coming to the court for this, would he not have been sentenced in our absence? Of course, but the sentence may not have been so harsh. The judge wanted us there so we could witness the example, and know how important we are to Dominica as tourists. We now see. Was it worth smashing a car window, and lying about some petty items, to waste some of the most influential and important years of your life rotting in a prison cell? Was it worth giving him 4.5 years, will he change, learn? Was it worth it? That is what I wonder now. I tell myself by going to the police and showing up to court, I reciprocated the effort Dominica put in for us. By testifying we helped take one more threat off of the streets of this struggling country. This a small contribution, we are aware of that, but it’s the biggest one we could make. It was worth it.