Prominent defense attorney Jomo Thomas has recently cleared up widespread public confusion over why the newly inaugurated Godwin Friday-led New Democratic Party administration cannot unilaterally resolve the pending criminal case against well-known educator and activist Adriana King — a question that emerged after the government greenlit a civil settlement for the family of 18-year-old motorcyclist Cjea Weekes, who died in a 2022 police pursuit crash.
Thomas, whose legal chambers have a long track record of winning high-profile suits against the previous Ralph Gonsalves administration, first announced the settlement of the Weekes case last month during his regular weekday “Plain Talk” segment on local radio station Boom FM. The agreement came just one day before the civil trial was set to begin, a move the lawyer praised for sparing the teen’s family additional emotional strain from a public court proceeding. He also highlighted that the settlement, authorized by Attorney General Louise Mitchell on Prime Minister Friday’s instruction, marked a break from the previous Gonsalves government’s years-long refusal to settle the suit, even noting that Weekes’ mother worked at Gonsalves’ official residence at the time of her son’s death.
Following the public announcement, the news of the settlement, first reported by iWitness News, sparked intense debate across local social media platforms, with many listeners and readers asking why the Friday administration would not extend the same resolution to King’s case. King faces criminal charges stemming from allegations she intended to block then-Prime Minister Gonsalves from accessing Parliament on August 5, 2021.
In his recent public address on the topic, Thomas emphasized that the core difference between the two matters lies in their legal classification: the Weekes dispute was a civil wrongful death claim against the government, while King’s case is a criminal prosecution. This legal distinction changes which government body has the authority to end the proceeding, he explained.
To contextualize the comparison, Thomas noted that civil cases, such as the Weekes suit, center on claims for financial compensation for damages, and the sitting government, through the Attorney General, has the authority to reach a settlement to resolve the claim. Criminal cases, by contrast, are brought by the state to punish unlawful conduct, and can result in prison time, suspended sentences, or permanent criminal records for convicted defendants. Only the constitutionally independent Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has the authority to dismiss criminal charges, Thomas explained, adding that the Prime Minister and Attorney General have no power to direct the DPP to drop a case, even if they wished to do so.
Thomas went on to share his personal assessment of King’s case, arguing that when applying the two core tests the DPP uses to evaluate criminal charges — the sufficiency of evidence test and the public interest test — the case against King fails on both counts. “I don’t think there’s a public interest in that case, I don’t think there’s sufficient evidence to support the charge against Miss King,” he stated.
A timeline of King’s case shows that the charges were initially dismissed in May 2024, when Magistrate John Ballah ruled that pursuing the charge amounted to an abuse of process. However, then-DPP Sejilla McDowall filed an appeal against the dismissal, and the appeal has not yet been scheduled for a hearing.
Thomas stressed that the DPP’s office is a constitutionally independent branch of government, so Prime Minister Friday cannot legally order the DPP to abandon the appeal. While he acknowledged that a sitting prime minister or attorney general may choose to privately communicate their position on a case to the DPP, they have no authority to force a specific outcome. “I think that we have to understand these things when we are having these conversations. Otherwise, we confuse and conflate issues, and we confuse a criminal case for a civil case,” he said.
Thomas also pushed back against public questions over why the Weekes case was settled civilly but no criminal charges were ever filed against the police officers involved in the pursuit that led to Weekes’ death. Weekes was killed in February 2022, when he crashed his motorcycle on Twenty Hill during a high-speed police chase that began in Questelles, just over a mile from the crash site. A coroner’s inquest ruled Weekes’ death a misadventure, and McDowall previously concluded there was no basis for criminal liability. Thomas confirmed that he has formally asked current acting DPP Duane Daniel to re-examine the evidence in the case to reconsider pursuing criminal charges against the involved officers, a position he has maintained despite the previous findings.
To correct another common misconception that only the current Friday administration settles civil claims against the government, Thomas added that the previous Gonsalves administration also greenlit settlements in other high-profile police brutality cases, including the 2008 beating of 15-year-old Jemark Jackson, who was left in a coma by officers at the Kingstown Criminal Investigation Department.