Debate over fate of Death Row prisoners

THERE is a possibility that every convicted killer on Death Row could have their sentence reviewed to determine whether they should be sent to the gallows or serve a term of imprisonment.

Judges of the High Court, led by Chief Justice Sat Sharma, are to decide the fate of Death Row inmates on whether the courts should review their sentences in light of last week’s Privy Council decision which ruled that the death sentence must not be mandatory on all convicted killers. Justice Peter Jamadar said in the San Fernando Supreme Court yesterday that judges were currently engaged in discussions on the issue. There are 84 convicted killers on Death Row, four of whom are women. There are some 24 convicted murderers whose sentences have been commuted to life imprisonment following the Pratt and Morgan ruling.

The lawlords in England, delivering judgement in the case of convicted killer Balkissoon Roodal vs the State, declared it was unconstitutional to impose the mandatory death sentence on every person convicted of murder. Upon a murder conviction, the court should determine the appropriate sentence, ranging between a term of imprisonment including life or the death sentence. The issue as to the fate of those already on Death Row came up during hearing yesterday of the constitutional motion of Angela Ramdeen who is seeking to have the court commute her sentence to life imprisonment.

Ramdeen, 42, who killed her two stepchildren and buried them in shallow graves, is contending that she should be removed from Death Row because she was there almost seven years, contrary to the Privy Council’s Pratt and Morgan ruling that all appeals must be exhausted within five years. The State is contesting the motion, and yesterday attorney Ian Benjamin told Justice Jamadar he was not of the view that the lawlords pronounced a policy decision in the Roodal case as to how all Death Row prisoners are to be now treated. “If they intended to bring that about they would have said so,” Benjamin told Justice Jamadar. The judge said he was not in a position to determine whether the Roodal judgement applied to all Death Row prisoners. If it did, he added, then convicted prisoners on Death Row can be deemed to be prisoners who are not presently under “a sentence of the court.”