‘Not every killer deserves to die’

PERSONS found guilty of murder in Trinidad and Tobago will be sentenced to death. If the people want a change, then it will be up to Parliament to do so. That was the plain and simple message handed down by the British Privy Council last Wednesday in the long-awaited judgment to an appeal brought by TT convicted killer Charles Matthew against his death sentence. A sentencing judge has no option. Once someone is found guilty of murder, the only sentence to be passed is death by hanging. The death penalty has been a raging topic not only in TT, but throughout the world. For years, the death penalty was debated in Trinidad and Tobago, but the law has not changed.

For anyone to attempt to change the law now, may result in stiff opposition from the public. Reason? There have been 129 murders so far this year. With the increase in kidnappings and other crimes, the public is running scared. The detection rate by the police is not attractive, while murder cases are going down the drain in the courts. The State effected several hangings in the 1970s. Among them were notorious killers Abdul Malik and Stanley Abbott. Bobby Gransaul was the last man hanged in October 1979. All during the 1980s, people were convicted of murder, yet the death penalty was not implemented. Warrants were read on many occasions at the Port-of-Spain State Pri-son. But the condemned men were successful in having the courts grant a stay of their execution. The constitutional motions went all the way to the Privy Council and death row became overcrowded.

In 1989, the then President Noor Hassanali established a Commission of Inquiry to look into the death penalty. The Commission was headed by attorney Elton Prescott, and after sittings up and down the length and breadth of this country, the Commission recommended that the death penalty remain on the statute books. But the Commission recommended degrees of murder — murder 1, murder 2, and murder 3. All killings are not murders. The NAR Government under whose auspices the inquiry was held, went out of office in 1991 without changes to the law. When the Patrick Manning Government came into power, attempts were made to resume hangings. Russell Hug-gins, as Minister of National Security, and then Attorney General Keith Sobion had the system hopping but all their efforts came to nought as lawyers successfully argued for a stay of execution. But a major blow was struck in November 1993 when the Privy Council in the case of Pratt and Morgan, ruled that the death sentence should not be carried out on persons on death row for more than five years.

Forty-two condemned men in Trinidad had to have their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment because they had been on death row for more than five years. The authorities were able in July 1994 to “slip” one execution when Glen Ashby was hanged while his constitutional motion was before the Privy Council. There was heated debate as to whether his hanging was legal, but the debate fizzled out with the passage of time. The UNC Government came into power in 1995, and although he was one of the lawyers in the 1980s who blocked hangings, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj promised to carry out the law as Attorney General. With Joseph Theodore as Minister of National Security, warrants were read for the execution of convicted prisoners who had lost all their appeals. Lawyers moved in and saved the necks of some of the brutal killers. With the system frustrating him daily, Maharaj pulled TT out of two conventions, ensuring that condemned men had no right to take petitions to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations Commit-tee on Human Rights.

But this became an issue for Darrin Roger Thomas and Haniff Hilaire who were successful in the Privy Council. The Law Lords said it would be wrong for the Government to execute condemned men who had petitions pending before the human rights bodies. But not everyone escaped. Dole Chadee and his gang of eight lost all criminal appeals, petitions to the human rights bodies, and even a constitutional motion. The die was cast and Chadee and his gang walked to the gallows in June 1999. One month later, Tony Briggs was executed days before his fifth anniversary in the condemned cells. Maharaj, as Attorney General, brought legislation to Parliament to change the constitution to have different categories of murder. But that legislation never saw the light of day.

With the Privy Council stating that the death penalty is mandatory, the question will surface again. What about the categories of murder? During the recent death penalty hearing in London, British Queen’s Counsel Edward Fitzgerald summed it up nicely — “not every killer deserves to die.” Fitzgerald is correct in his submission. Persons convicted of cold blooded murder should get the death sentence. Persons who kill during a robbery, kidnapping, gang warfare, and during a botched drug transaction, are the brutal ones. Those who kill while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, those who kill when they are mentally challenged, and those who kill in a fit of passion, do not deserve the death sentence. If there are categories of murder, they can receive a sentence in prison for any number of years.

It is now left to see whether the PNM Government will bring legislation to Parliament to effect changes with respect to the death penalty. It is also left to see if this happens, what position the Opposition will take. Will the UNC support the Government in Parliament? Only time will tell. Attorney General John Jeremie, who is responsible for the laws, will have to review the laws in light of the Privy Council’s ruling and in light of global changes. More than three months after hearing arguments in the appeal brought by convicted TT killer Charles Matthew, the Judicial Committee, by a 5-4 majority, restored the mandatory death penalty in Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados, but said it no longer applied in Jamaica. It was the first time in the history of the Privy Council that nine judges sat on an appeal. After hearing arguments between March 22 and 30, judgment was reserved. The Law Lords reversed their own judgment of November 20, 2003, in another Trinidad case of Balkissoon Roodal in which they ruled that the mandatory death penalty was no longer applicable.