Photo of a member of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), the country's police service, by BBC World Service on Flickr. (CC BY-NC 2.0).
According to his mother, 31-year-old Mario Deane might have smoked a little too much ganja, but he had never been in trouble. Yet, on the 52nd anniversary of Jamaica’s Independence on August 6, 2014, he died in hospital as a result of severe injuries inflicted upon him three days earlier by fellow inmates in a Montego Bay police lock-up.
Three inmates pleaded guilty to manslaughter. One was deemed “unfit to plead” because of mental health issues, but the other two were convicted of manslaughter in 2020 and sentenced to five years in prison. However, they were freed on account of having already served their time while in custody. Four years later, another inmate — and the main witness in the case — was shot and killed. The human rights lobby group Jamaicans for Justice followed the timeline of the case up until 2020, a snapshot that illustrates the numerous court delays.
Fast forward to 2025: after the case was postponed several times and eventually relocated to a different parish court because of a juror shortage, the three police officers who were on duty at the lock-up at the time of Deane’s beating — Police Corporal Elaine Stewart and Constables Juliana Clevon and Marlon Grant — finally stood trial. Accused of manslaughter, misconduct in public office, and perverting the course of justice, they were found guilty on May 22.
On July 1, their sentences were handed down; Corporal Stewart was sentenced to five years, but was released on bail pending an appeal. The other two police officers received suspended sentences and will therefore not serve any time behind bars. With that, the trio essentially walked out of court. Stewart, the most senior of the three officers, who had ordered the cell where Deane was beaten to be cleaned before investigators arrived, wept in court.
Deane’s mother, Mercia Frazer, who has campaigned tirelessly for justice for her son over the past decade, expressed her disappointment:
Two of the three cops convicted in the Mario Deane case will not go to prison as their sentences have been suspended. pic.twitter.com/OCX2Y7c6U1
— Jamaica Gleaner (@JamaicaGleaner) July 2, 2025
Frazer added that she intends to sue the state. Many Jamaicans, realising that it has been a long, tough journey for her, expressed their empathy. X user @A_Dat_Now called the verdict a “travesty of justice”:
The three JCF members convicted for the 2014 death of 31-year-old Mario Deane have received suspended sentences.
The judgement was handed down on Tuesday in the Westmoreland Circuit Court.https://t.co/BlyazQXaFm pic.twitter.com/aD11PjPeNk
— Nationwide90FM (@NationwideRadio) July 2, 2025
Broadcast journalist Ricardo Brooks tweeted sadly:
Mario Deane’s mother must feel like her child’s life meant nothing. I hope she takes some comfort in the fact that she did not fail him. She saw it through to the very end.
— Ricardo Brooks (@cardobrooks) July 2, 2025
The human rights lobby group Stand Up for Jamaica expressed deep concern, noting in a press release that the outcome “sends a dangerous message about the value of life, accountability, and equality before the law”:
Mario Deane died under State supervision after being arrested for a minor offense, his fate a stark reminder of how the poor and vulnerable are often treated in our justice system.
The suspended sentences raise a critical question: Does access to justice mean the same for everyone, or is it merely an illusion for the marginalized? When police officers are not meaningfully held accountable for abuse of power and loss of life, it erodes public trust and undermines the very foundation of justice.
We call for urgent reflection and reform to ensure that the justice system truly serves all Jamaicans, not just a privileged few. Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.
Some Jamaicans expressed anger, while others were cynical, suggesting that the outcome of the case was not unexpected and speculating about corruption.
Many of the responses reflected a general, long-standing distrust of the police among the Jamaican public. An op-ed by a University of Technology professor touched on the issue, pointing to an opinion poll suggesting that this absence of trust has persisted, despite recent successes in combating violent crime:
The lack of ‘procedural justice’ is at the heart of this psychological breakdown. Research continuously demonstrates that perceived fairness in the process is more important to public trust than results (arrests, crime rates). Do officers give justifications for their actions? Are they impartial when they listen? Do they treat citizens with respect? What psychologists refer to as ‘primal insecurity’ — a survival-level anxiety in which the organisation tasked with providing safety turns into a threat itself — has been brought about by the JCF’s historical shortcomings in these areas. This explains the poll’s conclusion that, despite quantifiable security improvements, 59.8 percent of respondents feel less safe now than they did five years ago.
The poll showed that close to half of the respondents, in particular, men and those within the 18-24 age group, expressed little or no confidence in the police.
Another often ignored issue that Deane's case highlighted is the conditions in police station lock-ups. Deane, who was arrested for possession of a ganja spliff, was put into a crowded cell with other more violent inmates, one of whom was mentally ill. In a radio interview, one commentator reminded listeners that both the overcrowding and the physical conditions have been consistently inhumane, referring to a 1992 incident at the Constant Spring lock-up in Kingston, where three men suffocated to death.
Several aspects of police-community relations, which contribute to this distrustful attitude, were reflected in social media responses to the sentencing. Despite politicians and the police expressing satisfaction at a drastic reduction in murders this year in the wake of an unprecedented gun seizure and several other successful gun finds, a feeling of insecurity lingers.
Writer and human rights defender Susan Goffe, while listening to a radio interview, drew a comparison with the recent case of Alando Gray, an innocent man whose photo the police erroneously posted on social media as “Wanted,” and who was imprisoned for several days until they determined that they had made a mistake:
Listening to report on mistaken identity case of Alando Gray, I was struck by him saying that the police threatened to put him in a cell with hardened criminals to let them deal with him. I thought of Mario Deane. There is a culture within the police force… @djmillerJA #Jamaica
— Susan Goffe (@suezeecue) June 18, 2025
The case caused public outrage and, with the matter being diligently pursued by one media house, the police eventually apologised.
According to the Independent Commission of Investigations into police abuses (INDECOM), the number of persons killed by police this year, as of July 8, was 169. In 2024, 189 fatal shootings were recorded.
One Jamaican tweeter commented that all the twists and turns of the tragic saga, which have continuously appeared in local media and public commentary over the past eleven years, should be fully documented.
Attorney and human rights advocate Clyde Williams concluded that the situation in which Mario Deane found himself was an example of a cold-hearted system and “unwarranted violence” on the part of the police:
It must be that the callous, often inhumane, treatment of working black Jamaicans at: public hospitals; police lock ups, remand centres…is government policy of the JLP & PNP when they form Government. For how else am I to look at the deliberateness without apology, correction or…
— Clyde Williams (@ClydeWilliams46) July 3, 2025
Within this context, how can a balance between national security and respect for human rights be achieved? University of Technology Professor Henry Lewis suggested that it will take years to undo a history of abuse and disrespect from the police, and that the road to healing will be a long one:
Reductions in homicide rates are an important but inadequate step forward. Healing the nation’s psyche, which has been conditioned by history to expect betrayal, is a more difficult task that requires patience from a scarred public, humility from the political directorate, and leadership from the police. It calls for laws that place just as much emphasis on upholding human dignity as they do on preventing crime.
Meanwhile, Deane’s mother is trying to come to terms with the sentencing, telling the local media, “In spite of all these years […] it seems like [Mario's] life is worth nothing.”
