Both the Prosecution and the defence presented their closing arguments to the jury this morning during the trial of Adam King in the Supreme Court.
Mr. King is charged with four counts of drug possession with intent to supply as well as possessing a digital scale intended for preparation of said drugs.
The drugs that Mr. King allegedly had in his possession were cocaine, diamorphine, cannabis and cannabis resin. All of the offenses are alleged to have occurred on July 27, 2017.
According to Alan Richards, for the Crown, the drugs in Mr. King’s possession had a total estimated street value ranging between $252,000 and close to $275,000.
A black backpack which contained, among other things, the drugs in question, is the central object in this case. According to Mr. Richards, anyone who had this backpack in their possession clearly intended to supply the drugs inside of it to make a lot of money.
“ The critical question in this case is not whether or not these substantial drugs were intended by their possessor for supply, but whether Mr. King was such a possessor back in July of 2017,” he told jurors.
According to Mr. Richards, the defendant’s behavior throughout the trial should be a better indication to the jury about his state of mind and intentions than what he actually told them during the presentation of evidence.
A PVC pipe was inside the backpack. The pipe contained a brown paper bag inside, which in turn contained a clear plastic bag. This plastic bag bore finger marks on it, which have since been traced back to Mr. King.
“ The presence of his fingerprint clearly suggests that his involvement in this enterprise does not does not detract from the fact that he may have come into possession of this backpack only shortly before he was intercepted by the police [on Brown Estates Road],” Mr. Richards said.
Mr. King admitted during the trial to attempting to hide and flee from the police. He claimed to flee from police because he had outstanding warrants from other courts.
“If Mr. King really believed that those other matters were what the police were following him for [on the date in question], why on earth would he flee and where would that get him,” Mr. Richards asked the jury. “ Literally, it landed him in the bushes near 2 Brown Estates Road . . . I’m not suggesting that there were not other, less serious warrants [outstanding] for Mr. King, what I am saying is that those warrants were not operating on his mind that day.”
During his closing arguments, Charles Richardson, representing Mr. King, reminded jurors that the only thing linking his client to the aforementioned backpack is one pinky fingerprint, which was found in a bag inside another bag, inside a PVC pipe that was inside the backpack; which had many other items inside of it.
Mr. Richardson also told the jury that, if the backpack were in Mr. King’s car on the night of the incident, it is highly unlikely that his car would be turned on while he was inside a gas station as CCTV footage showed.
“ We all know that if someone had $200 thousand worth of anything–drugs, money, jewelry, whatever–the backpack would either be on our back while we are in the gas station, or the car would be completely bolted up,” he said. “The Crown realized that that was a serious issue [for their case], so they said that Mr. King received the drugs after he had left Crawl gas station.”
Mr. Richardson argued that Mr. King tried to flee from police on that day because he had warrants in general, irrelevant of their level of severity. Fleeing from the police did not mean that Mr. King had drugs in his possession.
“ For a young black man in Bermuda, jail is jail, whether it is for family warrants or anything else, warrants mean jail,” he told jurors.
The final day of the trial is tomorrow, where Puisne Judge Shade Subair Williams will give the jury her interpretation of the evidence presented during the trial, as well as deliberation instructions.
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