MONROVIA — A day after Criminal Court “C” ordered former Vice President Jewel Howard-Taylor moved from Monrovia Central Prison to guarded house detention on medical grounds, a co-defendant in the same narcotics case has formally challenged the ruling, arguing that Judge Ousman F. Feika had no legal authority to grant it and asking him to reverse himself.
In a filing captioned “Exceptions to His Honor Ousman F. Feika’s Ruling in Granting Co-Defendant Jewel Howard Taylor Compassionate Release,” Garpue K. Wonlue takes issue with the September 4 order on six separate grounds, most of them turning on a single argument: that the law Judge Feika relied on does not apply to someone in Taylor’s position.
The Case So Far
Taylor, Liberia’s vice president from 2018 to 2024, was arrested at Roberts International Airport on August 19 in connection with what officials have described as a transnational narcotics trafficking investigation tied to a record cocaine seizure earlier this year.
She was formally charged over eight counts, including unlicensed importation, unlicensed sale and trading, and illicit trafficking of drugs, along with money laundering and abuse-of-office allegations.
Her lawyers spent the following weeks trying, without success, to keep her out of the general prison population.
A Monrovia City Court magistrate denied an initial request for compassionate detention, ruling that granting it fell within the authority of the Ministry of Justice rather than the judiciary. The defense’s follow-up appeal to the Supreme Court challenging that denial did not stop Taylor from being remanded to Monrovia Central Prison. She entered custody on September 2.
The case then moved to Criminal Court “C,” the circuit with jurisdiction over major drug offenses, where Judge Feika ordered Taylor’s immediate transfer from prison to 24-hour guarded house detention at her residence, converting her pre-trial custody into house arrest pending the outcome of the criminal proceedings.
Feika was explicit that the order rested solely on medical grounds and carried no bearing on guilt, writing that the release “shall therefore not constitute dismissal, acquittal, pardon, immunity, or termination of the criminal proceedings.”
The judge also noted that the State itself had not opposed the request.
The Challenge
Wonlue’s filing does not dispute that Taylor has a medical condition. Instead, it argues that the court used the wrong statute to address it — and in doing so, exceeded its authority. The exceptions raise six points:
1. Jurisdiction: The filing argues that Chapter 34, Section 34.20 of the Criminal Procedure Law — the provision Judge Feika relied on — applies only to people who have already been indicted, tried, convicted, sentenced and committed to prison. Taylor, still awaiting trial, doesn’t fit that description, the filing contends, and Wonlue asks the court to rescind the ruling and have her returned to custody at Monrovia Central Prison.
2. No such remedy exists: The Criminal Procedure Law provides for bail under Chapter 13 for the accused, and for commitment under Chapter 34 for the convicted, the filing says — but nothing in between for a pre-trial detainee seeking release on medical grounds. Granting “compassionate leave” from pre-trial detention, it argues, is a remedy the court created rather than one the statute authorizes.
3. Consent doesn’t create jurisdiction: The fact that the State did not oppose Taylor’s request doesn’t change the analysis, the filing argues — parties cannot agree to give a court power the statute doesn’t grant it.
4. Equal treatment: This is the filing’s broadest argument: that granting one high-profile, pre-trial detainee a form of release unavailable to others sets up a two-tier system, at odds with the fairness-in-administration standard in Section 1.2 of the Criminal Procedure Law and Article 11 of the 1986 Constitution. The filing points out that many pre-trial detainees at Monrovia Central Prison have untreated medical conditions of their own, and argues the proper remedy was to order the Bureau of Corrections to provide adequate care in custody — not to release one defendant from it.
5. The nature of the charges and the cost of enforcement: Given that Taylor faces serious felony charges — importation of controlled drugs, money laundering and abuse of office, as the filing describes them — Wonlue argues the release conditions impose an unfunded, unauthorized burden on the State, which must now provide round-the-clock security at her residence. Surrendering travel documents, the filing adds, doesn’t eliminate flight risk on its own.
6. The inquiry should have ended sooner: Once the court determined that Section 34.20 doesn’t apply to pre-trial detainees, the filing argues, that finding should have ended the motion rather than being followed by relief anyway. It maintains the appropriate avenue for a detainee with medical concerns is a bail motion under Chapter 13 — with bond, sureties and monitoring conditions — not compassionate leave.
What’s Being Asked
The filing asks Judge Feika to reverse course: to rule that Section 34.20 doesn’t apply to pre-trial detainees, to direct the Bureau of Corrections and Ministry of Health to provide Taylor medical treatment at JFK Medical Center or another approved facility while she remains in custody, and — if release is warranted at all — to take it up as a bail application under Chapter 13, with a substantial bond and formal sureties, rather than as compassionate leave.
Judge Feika has not yet ruled on the exceptions. Taylor remains under house arrest at her residence pending the outcome. All defendants in the case, including Taylor, are presumed innocent, and the charges against them remain allegations that have not been tested at trial.
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