Cropper: Let Pitman live

Pitman was due to hang last Monday morning at 6 am after a death warrant was read to him at the Port-of-Spain State Prison last week Wednesday afternoon.

Cropper was out of the country when the death warrant was read to Pitman.

Pitman and Daniel Agard were sentenced to death by Justice Herbert Volney on July 14, 2004, for the murders of Maggie Lee, Lynette Pearson, and John Cropper on December, 11, 2001, at their Second Avenue home in Cascade. The victims’ bodies were found bound and gagged in the bathroom. Their throats had been slit.

Pitman was moved to a cell near the gallows. The hangman was also informed of the date to perform the hanging.

"I was astounded to learn that a death warrant could be read to a convicted person while his appeal is still pending and I was relieved to see this stay of execution was successful," Cropper told Newsday. "I am happy he (Pitman) has competent lawyers and they filed to the Privy Council and notified the Attorney General (John Jeremie) and the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions)."

A constitutional motion was filed on June 9 by Pitman’s lawyers for a stay of execution.

Asked whether she believed Pitman should be hanged after he had exhausted all his appeals, Cropper, a known abolitionist, stated, "Personally no. I do not believe that the death penalty is a solution to anything. I think it is wrong in principle for the State to take the life of someone, on the basis that that person has offended the society. I think that people should be required to pay a penalty. But not at the cost of their lives. Nobody should. A life should not be taken in retribution for a life."

Asked what penalty she thought Pitman and others like him should face, Cropper said that was a matter for the courts to decide.

She stressed that the society needed to focus on the rehabilitative aspect of our prison system. "Here is a young man who has clearly gone wrong. He is being asked to pay a penalty for it. But we should not lose sight of the fact that everyone is capable of redemption.

"And we should be putting an appropriate focus in the prison system for our young men, rather than just trying to take their lives. Because that is such an easy solution.

"I could see how it is appealing as a solution because it is so easy and it is so final. But it could be the wrong solution because it is so irreversible and so definitive," she said.

Asked if the hanging of a convicted person could bring closure to someone like herself, who suffered the loss of a husband, mother and sister, Cropper said, " There can never be any closure."

"I am not excusing what he did, and if he is found guilty, it should not be with his own life," she concluded.