[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 28



TRINIDAD:

Death penalty red herring


The Prime Minister has once again sparked a debate about capital
punishment by his recent comments that the law will be changed to permit
the use of the death penalty. He is reported to have said.

"What we are talking about is enshrining in law the conditions under which
the death penalty can be carried out and therefore it is not left to the
judgment of others. There have been a number of Privy Council decisions
that have acted as constraints to the carrying out of the death penalty.
And we are trying to streamline our legislation in order to remove this
constraint.''

The Privy Council has made it extremely difficult to carry out the death
penalty (which is still the law of the land) by requiring a maximum
five-year timetable and also indicating that a mandatory death sentence is
unconstitutional. Mr Manning appears to be suggesting that Parliament will
pass laws to override the Privy Council, rather than addressing the issues
raised by that court.

It would seem to me that the Privy Council is right in criticising a
system in which it takes more than five years between conviction and
execution. The correct response to this is to dramatically speed up the
system by making appeals against the death sentence automatic and
immediate.

The mandatory death sentence is also an anachronism. Even the Romans knew
it was unnecessary to kill all their enemies and had a word for their
practice which was to "decimate" the enemy, i.e. literally to kill one in
ten. The idea that the State must sentence every murderer to death is
clearly wrong as we recognise that some murders are more heinous than
others. Surely the correct way to address this is not to ignore the Privy
Council's concerns but to change the law to eliminate the mandatory death
sentence?

It would seem much more equitable to allow a jury to recommend mercy and
allow a judge also to sentence to life imprisonment rather than death. The
Mercy Committee review should also be immediate. In this way we should
reduce the number of murderers facing the death sentence dramatically and
therefore reduce the time wasted on appeals against the death sentence.

The Prime Minister's statement is actually a major red herring because the
greatest impediment to the death penalty is not the Privy Council but the
incompetence and inadequacies of our own police service and judicial
system. As so many commentators have pointed out you have to catch them
and convict them first before you worry about the sentence. The greatest
deterrent to crime is the certainty of swift detection and conviction
followed by severe punishment. Whether that punishment is life
imprisonment or death is hardly going to be a major factor in deterring
murderers. As one cynic has already pointed out, if the death sentence
were a deterrent there would be no gangs in Trinidad because joining a
gang is in itself an almost certain death sentence.

I used to be a supporter of the death penalty in Trinidad and Tobago. I
would flippantly say that the death penalty has absolutely no place in a
civilised country and just as soon as T&T becomes a civilised country we
should repeal the death penalty in other words abolition should be part of
our vision 2020. My view has however changed over the years by my
recognition that the courts of Trinidad and Tobago are so incompetent and
the justice system so flawed that we cannot be sure that the death penalty
will be used only in the most extreme and deserving circumstances. Make no
mistake, I still have no sympathy with Dole Chadee and believe there are
many criminals deserving the death sentence in Trinidad and Tobago. This
is a country in which we have witnessed some of the most evil crimes
possible. However as long as our court system and our police remain as
poor as they are I believe that there is too much risk that the wrong
people may get hanged simply to satisfy the blood lust of the public and
re-election campaigns of politicians.

I don't believe there should be any death penalty in Trinidad and Tobago
until we have fully addressed the concerns of the Privy Council. The
judicial system must be swift and certain with every opportunity being
given to the convicted murderer to be shown clemency. The mandatory death
penalty should be abolished and the system speeded up so that all appeals
can take place within 12 months. This however is not our biggest problem.
Our biggest problem is that the detection and conviction rates are
dreadful, showing that the likelihood of someone who has committed murder
being convicted and sentenced to death is very small.

Until we can fix that major problem the death penalty will remain a red
herring brought up by politicians to mamaguy a frightened population. Our
focus should not be on criticising the Privy Council or passing laws to
circumvent their rulings. We should listen more carefully to the message
and reform our criminal Justice system so that it works speedily and
equitably. More important however are reforms to ensure the detection and
conviction rates are improved to an acceptable level, long before we worry
about sentencing.

(source: Opinion, William Lucie-Smith, Trinidad News)