Killers facing a bleak week

The authorities have identified a batch of convicted killers on death row for hanging. Ever since a warrant was read to Lester Pitman last Tuesday, there has been a tense and nervous situation at the city jail.

The usual happiness among death row inmates has disappeared. The major question on death row is: who is next?

That will be answered this week as the Advisory Committee on the Power of Pardon has identified several persons who do not fall within Pratt and Morgan and who can be sent to the gallows. Activity in prison revealed that one person has already been moved closer to the gallows. He was convicted in 2000.

There was a major blunder last week over Lester 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, at Second Avenue, Cascade, on December 11, 2001.

The Court of Appeal dismissed Pitman’s appeal on April 15 this year, but ordered a retrial for Agard. On April 22, Pitman filed in the Registry of the Court of Appeal, a notice of his intention to apply to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for special leave to appeal the decision of the Court of Appeal.

But that notice seemed elusive to everyone except the one who filed it — attorney Wayne Sturge. Norton Jack, a former magistrate and senior legal adviser to Attorney General John Jeremie, said that on May 27, he checked the records and files of the Solicitor General’s Department relating to notices of intention to appeal to the Privy Council filed by condemned prisoners.

Jack said he did not find any notice for Pitman. He also went to the Registry of the Court of Appeal that same day and made inquiries as to appeals of condemned prisoners whose cases had recently been dismissed — Chandroutie London, Arnold Huggins, Leslie Huggins, Junior Phillip, and Pitman.

According to Jack, no notice of intention to appeal was found for Pitman. He made another check days later and again found nothing for Pitman.

Having found no notice for Pitman, Jack said he advised the Attorney General.

Without any evidence of an appeal, the Advisory Committee headed by the Minister of National Security went ahead and recommended to the President that Pitman should be executed.

Didn’t the committee know that before they recommend execution for a prisoner, that prisoner has a right to be heard?

There is a Privy Council judgment on that. Was Pitman given the opportunity to be heard before the minister recommended to the President that he should be hanged?

Now that it has been revealed that a notice of intention for Pitman was filed since April 22, the execution carded for tomorrow has been stayed. But there is a bigger picture. When Pitman’s petition goes before the Privy Council, his attorneys are sure to raise the major blunder of the State.

Pitman can argue that the State traumatised him and made him suffer emotionally and mentally. He was weighed and moved to a cell closer to the gallows, he was asked what he wanted for his last meal, and the mental anguish suffered by his family.

The Law Lords, well known for their abolitionist tendencies, will not take into consideration what Pitman did his victims in Cascade nearly four years ago. The State has left a door open for Pitman to succeed.

Remember Lincoln Guerra? Together with Brian Wallen, Guerra pounced on James Girod, his wife Leslie Ann and seven-month-old baby boy Gregg at the Waller Field racing circuit on January 1, 1987.

After slitting the throats of mother and son, Guerra and Wallen left Girod for dead. By some miracle, he crawled out onto the road- way where a truck driver took him to the Arima Hospital.

Although he lost the use of his vocal cords for some time, he survived and testified against Guerra and Wallen who were later convicted and sentenced to death.

When the death warrants were read to them, both Guerra and Wallen petitioned the court for a stay.

They succeeded, but Wallen died in prison. Guerra’s death sentence was commuted to life by the Privy Council in a judgment dated November 6, 1995.

Remember Glenn Ashby? He was convicted in 1999 for the murder of BWIA pilot Khemraj Singh.

In July 1994, two Westmoorings women were murdered and in an immediate reaction to the brutal killings, the State moved swiftly to hang someone. Ashby who had been on death row for close to five years, was that man.

Ashby filed a constitutional motion to stop his execution. Having failed in the local courts to get a stay, lawyers sent the papers to London, hoping to have the Privy Council intervene.

I remember being in London covering the State’s appeal on the amnesty granted to the Jamaat al Muslimeen insurgents during the 1990 attempted coup.

The Law Lords were waiting to hear the application for the stay of the execution. While sitting in court, I remember the then Registrar of the Privy Council hustling into court with the news, "My Lords, the applicant is no more, he was executed this morning."

The immediate response of one Lord, "Those people in Trinidad are barbaric, the matter is still before the court."

Was Ashby’s hanging illegal? A Commission of Inquiry was held in Barbados months later and it was discovered that Ashby was executed illegally.

The State tried to hang Darrin Thomas and Haniff Hillaire, but the Privy Council put an end to that. The Law Lords ruled that once prisoners had petitions pending before the human rights bodies, they cannot be executed.

So much for Pratt and Morgan.

No more hangings until 1999. Dole Chadee, Joey Ramiah and seven other members of the Piparo gang. The gang lost all appeals and petitions before the international human rights committees. Even a petition seeking a stay of the hanging was dismissed in England on the morning of June 4, 1999. That gave the all clear for the authorities to hang Chadee and Ramiah that morning.

Within three days, all nine men were executed at the Port-of-Spain State Prison, placing Trinidad and Tobago on the map.

The following month, Anthony Briggs was hanged for the murder of a taxi driver at the Heights of Guanapo.

Back to the Westmoorings murders. Chuck Attin, then 16, and Noel Seepersad were convicted and sentenced to death. Attin was detained at the President’s Pleasure.

He was later detained at the Court’s Pleasure and sentenced to 25 years in jail. Seepersad’s sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.