Liberia: The Jury Debate — “A Corrupt Jury Is Worse Than No Jury.” But What About a Judge Who Has Already Spoken?

MONROVIA — When Chief Justice Yamie Quiqui Gbeisay Sr. rose to open the Supreme Court’s October Term on Monday, he did not deliver a routine ceremonial charge. He delivered an indictment of the jury system itself.

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By Rodney D. Sieh

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Jury manipulation, he told the courtroom at the Temple of Justice, was eroding the administration of justice in civil and criminal matters alike. He pointed to reported tampering in Nimba, Grand Gedeh, Bomi and Margibi counties, in cases ranging from rape to drug trafficking. Then he turned to the most politically charged trial in the country: the US$6.2 million economic sabotage case against former Finance Minister Samuel D. Tweah Jr. and others. The post-trial inquiry conducted by Criminal Court “C” Judge Ousman F. Feika, the Chief Justice said, had established “gross jury tampering.”

“A corrupt jury is worse than no jury at all,” he declared, calling on the Legislature, the Liberian National Bar Association, the Law Reform Commission and the Liberian people to consider abolishing trial by jury.

The remarks have set off a wave of reaction in law offices, on radio talk shows and across social media. But beneath the larger argument over whether Liberia should keep its juries lies a narrower and more urgent question, one with direct consequences for the Tweah case: by publicly characterizing findings that are now under appeal, has the Chief Justice compromised the appearance of his impartiality — and should he step aside if the matter reaches his bench?

A verdict under appeal

On May 8, a 15-member jury returned a split verdict, acquitting Tweah and one co-defendant while convicting three others of theft and criminal facilitation. Judge Feika later set the verdict aside following an inquiry into alleged juror misconduct and ordered a new trial.

Defence lawyers have appealed that decision. Tweah himself has said he will not join the appeal; his co-defendants have signed on.

At the heart of the challenge is a question of proof. The inquiry reportedly established that jurors had mobile phones in their possession. The defence argues that this falls short of showing the phones were used to influence jurors or interfere with the verdict.

The distinction matters. Possessing a prohibited device, communicating with outsiders and actually corrupting a verdict are separate factual and legal questions. Evidence of the first does not automatically establish the second or the third. The defence has also questioned the identities and voting records of the jurors found with phones — a claim that will have to be tested against the official jury record and the inquiry’s findings.

These are precisely the issues an appellate bench must decide independently, weighing the evidence, the law and the reasons Judge Feika gave for vacating the verdict. That is why the Chief Justice’s words carry such weight. Spoken by the head of the Judiciary from the Supreme Court bench, “gross jury tampering” does not sound like commentary. It sounds like a finding.

The Chief Justice’s own standard

Gbeisay has been here before — on the other side of the argument, and in this very case.

In January 2025, sitting as Chamber Justice, he ordered the then-presiding trial judge in the Tweah prosecution to recuse himself over remarks the prosecution said were prejudicial. The Supreme Court, he said at the time, was appalled by the judge’s statements. He went further, laying down a test: a judge’s perceived bias, real or implied, is sufficient grounds for recusal, and where a judge’s words and actions lead a party reasonably to believe it will not receive a fair trial, the judge should step aside for the sake of transparency and justice. Judges, he reminded the bench, must not only be impartial but must also appear to be impartial.

By that measure, the defendants now challenging Judge Feika’s ruling may argue they have reasonable grounds to doubt that the Chief Justice can approach their appeal with an open mind.

The Judiciary itself drew a similar line only months ago. In May, responding to reports that the Chief Justice had ordered an investigation into alleged jury tampering in the Tweah case, the Judiciary issued a strong denial. Its statement stressed that the Chief Justice does not interfere in criminal proceedings or initiate inquiries into jury deliberations in cases pending before the courts. Monday’s remarks sit uneasily alongside that assurance.

What the canons say

Liberia’s own judicial standards offer a starting point. Judicial Canon Ten, published on the Judiciary’s official website, requires a judge to be temperate, attentive and impartial, and diligent in ascertaining the facts. Canon Eleven, which deals with avoiding impropriety, restricts judicial commentary on current news and matters of general public interest. Both reflect a long-standing principle: public confidence in the courts depends on judicial restraint.

Other jurisdictions are more explicit. Rule 2.10(A) of the American Bar Association’s Model Code of Judicial Conduct bars judges from public statements that “might reasonably be expected to affect the outcome or impair the fairness” of a pending or impending case. The American rule is not binding in Liberia, but it illustrates a standard widely shared across common-law systems, from which Liberia’s own jurisprudence descends.

None of this suggests a judge may not speak out against jury tampering. Protecting the integrity of trials is a core judicial duty. The concern is narrower: whether the head of the Judiciary can characterize the findings in a specific, contested case in definitive terms and then sit in judgment on those same findings.

A bench running short

The question is complicated by arithmetic. The two female Associate Justices on the Supreme Court have already recused themselves from the matter. Should the Chief Justice follow, the Court would face pressing questions about the composition of the bench and whether it can muster a quorum.

The Judiciary Law anticipates such situations. Section 2.7 governs the disqualification of Supreme Court justices, while Section 2.8 provides for reconstituting a quorum through ad hoc appointments when more than two justices cannot sit on a pending case. How those provisions apply will depend on the actual recusal orders and the procedural posture of the appeal.

But practical difficulty cannot settle a question of principle. The law provides a route to constitute a bench; the need to fill seats cannot by itself determine whether a particular justice should occupy one.

The larger debate

The Chief Justice’s scepticism about juries is not new. At his confirmation hearing, he argued that Liberia was the only country in West Africa where jury trials were mandatory and called for the Constitution to be revisited on the issue. Other judges have voiced similar views. Civil Law Court Judge Kennedy Peabody has argued for abolishing jury trials to curb corruption, and in August, opening the criminal courts’ term, Judge Banwon described the jury as the most vulnerable link in the justice chain and proposed a national conversation on its future.

Yet abolition is no simple reform. Trial by jury is a fundamental right under Article 21(h) of the 1986 Constitution, which guarantees an accused person a speedy, public and impartial trial by a jury of the vicinity unless the right is expressly waived. Removing it would require a constitutional amendment, not a policy decision by the courts.

Critics also warn about what would replace juries. A lawyer who spoke to FrontPageAfrica on condition of anonymity, citing fear of retribution, argued that shifting verdicts entirely to judges, without confronting allegations of corruption on the bench, could further erode public trust. Remove the jury, the argument runs, and the judge becomes the sole gatekeeper of guilt and innocence.

Meanwhile, defendants are not abandoning juries. In the Saudi rice diversion case now before Criminal Court “C”, former officials have demanded a full 15-member panel — the same strategy used in the Tweah trial. And the Supreme Court is still weighing a separate dispute over the dissolution of the jury in the Capitol arson trial. The jury question, in other words, is before the Court in more ways than one.

The question that remains

The Chief Justice may sincerely believe that jury tampering threatens Liberia’s justice system, and he may be right. But judicial impartiality is measured not only by the absence of actual bias; it also depends on whether a reasonable observer could doubt a judge’s ability to weigh a disputed matter afresh.

Recusal is not a punishment, nor an admission of bias. It is a safeguard — for the parties, for the integrity of the proceedings and for the credibility of the Court.

Liberia can investigate jury tampering rigorously and debate the future of the jury system openly. What it cannot afford is a Supreme Court ruling on the Tweah appeal that half the country believes was decided on Monday morning, in the Chief Justice’s opening address.

The issue is not whether jury tampering should be condemned. It is whether the man who has publicly condemned it in this case can now judge it. That question deserves a clear answer — grounded in Liberia’s judicial canons, its law on disqualification and the constitutional promise of impartial justice.