Convicted prisoner get another chance

A PRISONER who was ordered to serve 16 years after being given seven consecutive sentences has gotten another chance. The High Court ruled Friday that the magistrate had no power to order consecutive sentences on Lincoln Smith. Madame Justice Mira Dean-Armorer quashed the sentences passed on Smith and remitted the cases to the Couva Magistrates’ Court for a new sentencing hearing. She ruled that the magistrate’s sentences were illegal, unconstitutional, and a breach of the applicant’s constitutional rights.

Smith was found guilty by Magistrate Kwesi Bekoe on October 29, 1998 on charges of robbery, larceny, and breaking and entering a dwelling house. The magistrate ordered Smith to serve seven consecutive sentences totalling 16 years. Now that the judge has remitted the case to the Couva Court, Smith will be re-sentenced by  another magistrate as Bekoe is no longer in the Magistracy. Smith had filed a constitutional motion against the Attorney General in 2003 challenging the sentences imposed on him. Smith, who is incarcerated at the Maximum Security Prison, Arouca, was represented by Mark Seepersad and Gerald Ramdeen. State attorneys Petal John and Avion Ferguson appeared for the Attorney General. Justice Dean-Armorer also ordered that the Attorney General pay costs to the applicant. She pointed out that no arguments were submitted for monetary compensation, but she ordered that damages be assessed by a Judge in Chambers.

Smith also challenged an order made by President George Maxwell Richards, who acted on the advice of the Minister of National Security. The President granted an order in which he sought to regularise the illegal sentences. In her judgment, Justice Dean-Armorer pointed that under Section 38 (1) of the Constitution, the President is not answerable in court. She quoted from the judgment of Justice James Davis in the Andy Thomas/Kirk Paul constitutional motion in 1986. The judge noted that the President was not performing a judicial function when he sought to regularise the illegal sentences which had been passed on Smith.

She ruled that the President was fully empowered to change a sentence. She felt it would be fallacious to stop the President from correcting a faulty sentence. Justice Dean-Armorer said the President sought to abridge the sentence, not magnify it. She said no injustice occurred as Smith was already in prison. She said the Presidential Order did not deprive the applicant of his liberty as he was already in custody. She said the President reduced the prisoner’s sentence.