An angry Supreme Court judge has said she will not allow anyone to dictate her trial schedule.Justice Vera Watkins yesterday censured the newly-implemented case management policy of having Senior Supreme Court Justice Jon Isaacs set court dates for all of the criminal courts at arraignment.

Justice Watkins told AG prosecutor Linda Evans that she had learned that trial dates had been set for her court in 2012.  Justice Watkins said, "Unless it is approved by me, I will not be hearing it. I set my calendar based on how I will deal with the case. I don't want people setting my calendar.

"I will not be accepting any cases set by someone else. Let your deputy director or the attorney general or whoever know, it's not going to work."  This is not the first time that Justice Watkins has spoken out on the practice.  Last week, she said whatever matters had been set for her would be unset.

The Nassau Guardian understands that four cases have been assigned to Justice Watkins for 2012. The rape case of Clint Lockhart, Ryan Forbes, Ruben Cleare and Marvin Clarke, the armed robbery case of Tarrino Tucker and the attempted murder case of Tavare Mejias are all set for March. The murder trial of Jessie Williams is scheduled as a back-up case in February.

Last month, Attorney General John Delaney touted the new procedure as a means of achieving efficiency in the system. Delaney told the Senate of plans to implement a fifth court that would deal with hearings, arraignments and trial fixture dates for the other four trial courts.

Delaney boasted that the case management had been partially implemented.  He said, "However, with the four criminal trial courts in New Providence, it has been possible as of 1st April, 2011 for the Supreme Court to implement it in part.  "Namely, arraignment hearings and fixing of trial dates are now conducted by one of the four courts, as opposed to each of the courts doing so, and courts are dedicated to hear, respectively, current cases, backlog cases and re-trials, as already mentioned. This partial implementation of criminal case management has already yielded powerful results."

Justice Watkins' rebuke is similar to action taken in 2006 by then Justice John Lyons who harshly criticized the Swift Justice Program initiated by then Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson. Justice Lyons sent back nine cases to the Criminal Registry that were set for his court, which he determined were not ready for a fair trial.

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