Lawyers battle for 82 killers

TWO groups of lawyers are now battling to represent all 82 convicted killers on Death Row in the constitutional motion before the Port-of-Spain High Court. In an affidavit filed on Thursday, attorney Ravi Heffes-Doon produced the names of 55 persons which he and his group represent. But in another affidavit produced by Superintendent of Prisons Isaiah Roachford, some of the persons’ named in Heffes-Doon’s affidavit were visited and interviewed by other lawyers, Mark Seepersad and Gerald Ramdeen. While Seepersad and Ramdeen do not represent any of the convicted persons in the “representative” motion, they have instructions from 17 persons on Death Row. Lawyers claim that the death penalty cases are done “pro bono” by them.

Douglas Mendes SC heads the group of lawyers who appear for the 55 named convicts. The others are Reginald Armour SC, Gregory Delzin, Ian Stuart Brook, Stuart Young, Derek Ali, Margaret Rose and Heffes-Doon, as the instructing attorney. This team first filed a constitutional motion last Monday on behalf of Andrew Dottin, Ramsingh Jairam, Kelvin Dial, and Mark Teeluck, in which they were seeking to stop the Advisory Committee on the Power of Pardon from hearing their petitions later that day. While affidavits were filed by Heffes-Doon on behalf of Dottin, Jairam and Dial, none was filed for Teeluck. But in the Barristers Visitors’ Book at the Port-of-Spain State Prison, Teeluck was visited by Ramdeen and Seepersad, who over the last two years have filed motions on behalf of several convicted killers who have been incarcerated for rather lengthy periods.

Even before the Mendes group went to get instructions from these “condemned four,” Seepersad and Ramdeen had visited them on June 11. Heffes-Doon, in his affidavit, said he requested Margaret Rose and Derek Ali to visit the prison on June 13 for the purpose of obtaining instructions on his behalf from persons on Death Row and who were sentenced to death before the Privy Council delivered its judgment in the Charles Matthew case on July 7, 2004. He said Rose took instructions from 46 persons on Death Row in Port-of-Spain, while Ali did likewise from five women at the Women’s Section of the Golden Grove Prison at Arouca.

Heffes-Doon said Rose and Ali received instructions from the prisoners who all expressed their desire and gave him instructions to be included in the representative action. But his list of men does not include all the persons awaiting sentence of death on Death Row. Of the ten men convicted in 2000 for the murder of Thackoor Boodram, just one (Seenath Ramiah) is represented by the Mendes group. Michael “Rat” Maharaj, a member of the condemned ten, was visited by Ramdeen and Seepersad on June 13, according to the list attached to the superintendent’s affidavit.

Among those being represented by the Mendes group are Naresh Boodram, brother of hanged murderer Dole Chadee, Noel Seepersad, sentenced to death for the Westmoorings murders, Haniff Hilaire, Denny Baptiste, and Darrin Roger Thomas, who had the death warrants read to them in 1998 and whose executions were stopped, and five women, Natasha De Leon, Chitrah Dookran, Malharie Dookran, Parbatie Sandra Dass, and Chandroutie London. Teeluck was sentenced to death by Justice Anthony Lucky on July 14, 2000 for the murder of Narvin Nandlal on December 12, 1997. Dial and Dottin were sentenced to death by Justice Herbert Volney in October 1997 for the murder of Junior Baptiste on February 21, 1995. Jairam was sentenced to death in 1986 for the murder of Premraj Mahabir on April 4, 1984.