Capital punishment for capital offences

There was public outcry following the murder of several innocent women: Shannon Banfield, age 22; Siparia mother and daughter Sylvestine Gonzales- Bernard, 87, and Kathy Ann Bernard, 51.

Pensioner Dorothy Hosein, 65, was tied, raped, strangled and dumped in a pond.

Abiela Adams, 15, was thrown in a heap and her throat slit. Jamila de Revenaux, 27, was murdered at MovieTowne, her throat slit. Rachael Ramkissoon, 16, was molested and strangled.

The Offences Against the Person Act, Chapter 11:08, establishes as punishable criminal conduct certain classifications of crime.

Homicide or murder is defined as the premeditated and intentional unlawful killing of a person. The law states that “every person convicted of murder shall suffer death.” To be guilty of murder, a death must have occurred and also must have been the intended result by the person committing the killing.

Unintentional death through the actions of an offender will not be classed as murder but can fall under the classification of manslaughter.

A jury determines the issue of whether an unlawful killing was intentional (murder) or unintentional (manslaughter).

Where manslaughter is determined by jury to be more suited than murder to the circumstances of a victim’s unlawful death, the offender does not suffer death. He/she is liable to a lesser penalty in law: “Any person who is convicted of manslaughter is liable to imprisonment for life or for any term of years, or to pay such a fine as the court shall award.” The offences of conspiring or soliciting to commit murder, attempting to commit murder, and maliciously written/verbal threats to kill or murder are also classed by the law as offences against the human person for which the punishment to the offender must be commensurate with the degree and extent of unlawful harm inflicted on the victim.

A judge hearing a trial directs the jury on the severity or leniency of the punitive sentence to be imposed.

The components of sentencing for unintentional unlawful deaths (manslaughter) must be sufficiently severe to punish the offender’s unlawful action, and to rehabilitate the offender by making him responsible for the consequences of his unlawful action against another human being.

In passing penal sentences, the severity of punishment imposed on the offender should also send a message to his peers and wider society. By the offender’s peer and wider society looking on at his/her fate at the end of a criminal trial, for murder or manslaughter, they all must feel disinclined towards emulating similarly unlawful conduct.

It is the responsibility of the judicial system to ensure that the message of deterrence is fostered by the prosecution of capital offences.

Certainly, 120 murders in 85 days indicate clearly that the environment within TT has no regard for the rule of law, which, when observed by law-abiding citizens, mandatorily prohibits the commission of capital offences.

Deterrence has been replaced by encouragement towards capital offences and a judicial tendency towards immunity of people who have committed capital offences as sentences of death, when passed, are never carried out.

I refer to a recent article in which a prominent judge was quoted as saying, “It is not bullets and stabbings that we should be worried about…” (Guardian, March 25). I disagree entirely with such a position taken by a judicial officer because it is the said bullets and stabbings that he is not concerned about that brings about capital offences and results in homicides.

The average human being will be afraid of bullets and stabbings as a matter of our basic need for self-preservation.

Statements made by judicial officers ought to reflect the desire to uphold the rule of law and the protection of the common man.

The time has come for us to stop turning a blind eye to the failings of our legal and judicial system which, in my view, have encouraged the commission of capital offences.

Retribution, deterrence, and respect for the rule of law are integral in the punishment of capital offences.

Committing a capital offence is commensurate with receiving capital punishment: death in the first degree, life imprisonment or an adequately punitive term of years.

To the authorities, murder is out of control. Innocent blood has been shed. We owe it to the victims to enforce the death penalty.

Marvin Ramnarine is the president of the Rotary Club of Pointe-a-Pierre