Ex-VP Howard-Taylor Faces Criminal Court “C” Wednesday | Legal

When former Vice President Jewel Howard-Taylor is escorted into Criminal Court “C” at the Temple of Justice this Wednesday, September 3, she will not be arraigned for trial, and she will not be asked to plead guilty or not guilty.

Instead, the nation’s most explosive narcotics case will open with a purely legal, but politically lethal, fight: a battery of preliminary requests filed by her defense team arguing that the Monrovia City Court — which charged her, jailed her, and issued the writ for her arrest — acted entirely without jurisdiction.

It is a high-stakes procedural gambit that could collapse the entire prosecution before the Grand Jury even sees it.

Sources close to the defense team, headed by senior counsel of the former ruling establishment, confirmed to this paper that Wednesday’s hearing is convened solely to hear Defense’s Preliminary Motions now that the case file has been transmitted to the proper court.

The Monrovia City Court is a court of limited jurisdiction. Under the country’s Criminal Procedure Law and the Judiciary Law, a Magisterial Court cannot try, convict, or keep a person to answer for an infamous crime — which includes first-degree drug trafficking under the Amended Controlled Drugs and Substances Act of 2023, which carries a penalty above one year.

Its only power is to determine probable cause and bind over. “What the City Court did was exceed its mandate by issuing a non-bailable detention order for an offense it cannot try,” a defense counsel familiar with the filing argued. “Once Magistrate Barco found probable cause, he was a functus officio. He had no authority to order her continuous detention at Monrovia Central Prison under a non-bailable statute. Only Criminal Court C can do that after a proper writ and a Grand Jury indictment. Therefore, her detention is unconstitutional and void ab initio.” 

The defense will file at least four preliminary requests before Judge Ousman Feika.

Motion to Quash the Writ of Arrest and Dismiss for Lack of Jurisdiction: Arguing that the August 25 Writ signed by Clerk Abel Kalay is defective because the City Court cannot issue an arrest writ for a non-bailable Circuit Court offense in the manner it did.

Petition for Habeas Corpus: Demanding her immediate release from Monrovia Central Prison on grounds that she is being held without a valid indictment from a Grand Jury, in violation of Article 21(h) of the Constitution which states no person shall be held to answer for a capital or infamous crime unless on presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury.

Motion for Bail Notwithstanding Non-Bailable Charge: While the 2023 Act makes trafficking non-bailable, the defense will argue that without an indictment, the non-bailable provision has not yet attached. They will argue bail is a constitutional right until indicted.

Motion for Preliminary Examination of Evidence and Suppression: Challenging the narrative in the Writ — the alleged Dubai meeting with Croatian national Nikola Ivancic, the $45,000, $75,000 to Jewel Star Fish Foundation, and $15,000 August payment through Sheikh Bashiru Kante — as hearsay not tested at a proper preliminary hearing.

In short, the defense is telling Criminal Court C: You are the first real court in this matter. Everything before you was a holding action by a court that had no power.

This is a textbook example of Liberia’s two-tier felony procedure, and it is why the move to Court C is not just a formality.

Under Criminal Procedure Law Section 12.4, after a finding of probable cause, the Magistrate MUST transmit all original papers to the Circuit Court. Criminal Court C, as Montserrado’s designated drug court, is the first court vested with subject matter jurisdiction to decide liberty, bail, and the validity of detention for this grade of offense.

Judge Feika cannot try her yet — he cannot act without an indictment from the Grand Jury. But he has the sole authority to decide whether she stays in prison pending that indictment, or walks out on bail, or has the case thrown out for procedural error.

Prosecutors from the Ministry of Justice and LDEA are expected to counter aggressively. Their argument will be that detention pending Grand Jury presentment is mandatory for non-bailable offenses, and that the City Court acted perfectly within Section 12.3 which allows a Magistrate to commit a defendant to prison to await Grand Jury action.

If the state wins, Howard-Taylor stays at Monrovia Central Prison until the Grand Jury term, expected later this month.

If the defense wins even partially — especially on Habeas Corpus — she could be released on bail, a political earthquake that would embarrass the Boakai administration’s war on drugs.

Legally, this is about jurisdiction. Politically, it is about legitimacy.

By framing Wednesday as a jurisdictional challenge, Howard-Taylor’s team has shifted the battlefield from “Did she traffic cocaine?” to “Did the state violate her constitutional rights to prove it?”

It is a brilliant political strategy for three reasons:

 It De-Criminalizes Her in the Court of Public Opinion: She is no longer a drug defendant; she is a former Vice President and Standard Bearer of the NPP whose liberty was taken by a court that had no power. The Coalition of Bong Eminent Citizens has already adopted this language, calling her detention “political persecution through jurisdictional overreach.”

For the government, Wednesday is a must-win. If its flagship prosecution under the 2023 drug law — linked to the $317 million and $19.2 million seizures — collapses on a technicality of jurisdiction, Liberia’s international partners who funded the LDEA reform will ask hard questions.

The state will argue that Liberia cannot afford to treat transnational cocaine as a technicality. The defense will argue that Liberia cannot afford to treat the Constitution as a technicality.

On Wednesday at Criminal Court C, Judge Feika will not decide if Jewel Howard-Taylor is a trafficker. He will decide which court has the power to even ask that question — and whether she will wait for that answer from a prison cell or from home.

All charges remain alleged. The defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by a court of competent jurisdiction.