Defendant Was Right: Zinc Roof Gave His Electronic Monitoring Tag Wrong Readings

By Alric Lindsay

Ezekai Ezekiel Carter Jr. appeared in the Summary Court today, July 13, 2026, after he was taken into custody for an alleged breach of his electronic-monitoring bail condition. He was regranted bail after the electronic monitoring company confirmed that the electronic monitor experienced issues when exposed to zinc roofing. When this happens, the electronic monitor may show that a defendant is one place, but actually he or she is in another location.

The court heard that police had attended Carter’s home after his electronic monitor stopped transmitting a signal. When officers knocked, a family member told them the defendant was not on the property, and he was subsequently taken into custody for breach of his bail conditions.

Both Carter and his attorney, Lauren Miranda of Samson Law, maintained that he had been at home throughout, and that the monitor had been malfunctioning and had to be replaced, with a signal problem interrupting its transmissions. The Chief Magistrate was initially skeptical about the claim that the tag was at fault, noting that the signal had been picked up later the same night — around the time officers returned and Carter appeared — which, on its face, suggested he may not have been there earlier.

The Chief Magistrate stood the matter down rather than decide it immediately, saying she could not accept the explanation unless a genuine confirmation came from the electronic monitoring centre company.

When the case was recalled, the Chief Magistrate said she had verified the position with the electronic-monitoring company. The company confirmed that the electronic monitor “fault” described by Carter “is actually a thing,” and that its staff had on occasion had to call him outside to adjust the equipment.

Noting that Carter had otherwise complied with his bail, had attended court every time, and the Chief Magistrate granted him bail again on the same conditions.

It is understood that Carter will appear in the Grand Court this week.

Note to readers

Electronic monitoring (an “ankle tag”) is sometimes used in the Cayman Islands as a condition of bail, allowing a defendant to remain in the community while their whereabouts are monitored. Where a monitored person’s tag stops transmitting, they can be brought back before the court and, if a breach of bail is found, remanded into custody.

Given that this issue has been raised by other defendants, it should now be mandatory for any authority that relies on electronic monitoring to verify, on a regular and documented basis, that each monitor is functioning and emitting a valid signal — and to confirm a device is genuinely faulty or genuinely tampered with before a missing signal is treated as a breach and used to justify an arrest.  Without such safeguards, a defendant is presumed to have breached, is arrested, and only later — if a court looks behind the alert — is the fault traced to the machine. That is a recipe for wrongful accusation, false arrest and unnecessary detention. It is also a waste of the court’s time and resources of authorities.