BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – WHILE the Ninth World and European Day Against The Death Penalty was being celebrated on Monday, October 10, five inmates on Death Row at Her Majesty’s Prison in St. Kitts were still awaiting announcement of the day when they would be executed.
The five condemned men are Everson ‘Blee’ Mitcham, Romeo ‘Buncome’ Cannonier, Ruedeney ‘Denny’ Williams, Sheldon ‘Hatcher’ Isaac and Louis ‘Tooloo’ Gardener.
Mitcham was sentenced to death by Justice Davidson Baptiste on June 26, 2001 for the February 3, 2001 murder of Vernal Nisbett, while his co-accused, Vincent Fahie and Patrice Matthew, were sentenced to life imprisonment.
According to the facts presented in court, on the day in question, Mitcham, Fahie and Matthew were about to rob Arlene Fleming, who was at the time vending barbecue chicken at the junction of Marshall Alley and Cayon Street, when Nisbett attempted to stop them but was fired upon and killed in the process.
An appeal was filed in 2004 by defence counsel Dr. Henry Bowne, who called for the dropping of the murder charges and the consideration of manslaughter.
However, Justice Baptiste upheld the sentences.
Appeals were also made to the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal and the Privy Council in London, which effectively stayed his execution that was scheduled for June 19, 2004; but both attempts to have the High Court’s decision overruled were upheld.
Cannonier is facing two death sentences - one for the July 25, 2004 murder of Police Constable Delvin Nisbett for which he was convicted on October 23, 2007, and the other for the March 21, 2005 shooting-death of Gavin ‘Magilla’ Gilbert.
Nisbett was gunned down in cold blood while traversing a stretch of road between Parsons Village and Dieppe Bay en route to his girlfriend’s home.
According to evidence presented during the case, Cannonier confessed to his then girlfriend, Makenia Lucas, that he had committed the crime.
Other evidence showed that after Cannonier was arrested for the offence and remanded to prison, he had sent instructions to the ‘outside’ concerning the whereabouts of the gun used in the murder and also instructions on what should be done with it when retrieved.
After his conviction, Cannonier appeared before the Justices of Appeal requesting that the decision and sentence imposed by the High Court of Justice be overturned. But the Justices of Appeal ruled that his conviction of Nisbett’s murder and the death sentence be sustained.
They had however imposed a stay of execution which expired on December 1, 2008.
In the killing of Gilbert, Cannonier was sentenced to death along with Gardener, Williams and Isaac by Justice Alfred Redhead on July 15, 2008.
The court was told that between 9:50 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. on March 21, 2005, Gilbert was gunned down a short distance from his Saddlers Village home.
According to evidence presented, the four men had played unique roles in Gilbert’s orchestrated death. Also, in accordance with the evidence, Cannonier had masterminded the plan, Williams was the transporter and whistle blower while Isaac and Gardner were the executioners.
The plan was birthed, as evidence suggested, because Gilbert was a key witness in the case of the murder of Constable Nisbett.
It was reported that Cannonier was behind bars when the incident occurred but other evidence presented indicated that he communicated his plan to Gardener through Lionel Warner, whom Sir Richard Cheltenham described as “the messenger of death”.
Evidence also suggested that Isaac was present when the message was communicated and he volunteered his services to commit the reprehensible act.
In the case of Mitcham, 10 years have passed since he was sentenced to death, while four years have passed since Cannonier was sentenced to death for the killing of Constable Nisbett, and he, along with Gardener, Williams and Isaac have been in Death Row for more than three years for the killing of Gilbert.
However, will these men be taken to the gallows?
At this time, Mitcham’s death sentence can be commuted to life imprisonment, and by October 22, 2012, Cannonier can also be fortunate for his to be commuted for the first death sentence. And while Cannonier, Gardener, Williams and Isaac are awaiting their dates of appeal to the Privy Council, the foursome can also have their sentence commuted to life imprisonment after July 13, 2013.
An explanation for these assumptions is listed below.
At trials, cases are won or lost based on evidence presented and arguments proffered by prosecutors and defence counsels. And the sentencing of a convicted individual is not automatic; it is dependent on the discretion of the trial officer or, in some cases, the precedent, which is termed the rule of law established for the first time by a court for a particular type of case and thereafter referred to in deciding similar cases.
Addressing the issue of death penalty in the House of Assembly on Thursday 29, September 2011, the Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, said, “The Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal and the Privy Council have driven a ‘Horse and Chariot’ through our pre-1993 understanding of what the constitution and the law was about, thus making it practically impossible to hang anybody, unless in the ‘worst of the worst’ or ‘rarest of the rare’ cases of murder.”
Dr. Gonsalves, a lawyer by profession, was referring to the Privy Council’s ruling in the Pratt and Morgan Case in Jamaica, which states that if someone is not hanged within five years of the date of sentencing, the death penalty can no longer be carried out on that person.
He also made reference to the case of Daniel ‘Compay’ Dick Trimmingham, in which the Privy Council ruled it was not the ‘worst of the worst’ and commuted his sentence to life imprisonment.
According to The Vincentian, the national newspaper of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dick Trimmingham was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of 68-year-old Carriere livestock farmer Albert ‘Bertie’ Browne, who was disemboweled and beheaded in the Carriere mountains some years ago. Browne’s body was dug up from a shallow grave about 300 feet from where his head was unearthed.
“So the death penalty in a nutshell is formally on the books, but for it to be applied practically, it can only be applied as judges have interpreted the constitution. Not only in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, but the constitutions of St Lucia, St. Kitts-Nevis, Belize, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, the same position has been held”, The Vincentian quoted Dr. Gonsalves as saying.
“We all understood that the death penalty was mandatory for murder, but the law courts have changed that by their interpretation of the constitution,” the Prime Minister added.
Earl Pratt and Ivan Morgan had committed a murder on October 6, 1977 and have been held in custody ever since. On January 15, 1979 they were convicted and sentenced to death. Since that date, they have been in prison in that part of Saint Catherine’s prison set aside to hold prisoners under sentence of death and commonly known as death row.
On three occasions the death warrant was read to them and they have been removed to the condemned cells immediately adjacent to the gallows. The last occasion was in February 1991 for execution on March 7 that same year, but a stay was granted on March 6 consequent upon the commencement of these proceedings.
According to Lord Griffiths, the statement of these bare facts is sufficient to bring home to the mind of any person of normal sensitivity and compassion the agony of mind that these men must have suffered as they have alternated between hope and despair in the 14 years that they have been in prison facing the gallows.
Lord Griffiths also stated that it was unnecessary to refer to the evidence describing the restrictive conditions of imprisonment arid the emotional and psychological impact of this experience, for it only reveals that which it is to be expected.
It was further argued at the time of appeal to the Privy Council that these men were not alone in their suffering for there are now 23 prisoners in death row who have been awaiting execution for more than 10 years and 82 prisoners who have been awaiting execution for more than five years. It is against this disturbing background that their Lordships must now determine this constitutional appeal and must in particular re-examine the correctness of the majority decision in Riley v. Attorney-General of Jamaica [1933] 1 A.C. 719.
In an effort not to violate the Privy Council decision [precedent], Attorney-at-law Reginald W. James, in a correspondence to the Federation’s Attorney-General dated September 25, 2007 and headlined ‘The resumption of capital Punishment on condemned persons in St. Kitts and Nevis’, suggested that an amendment be made to the Constitution of St. Kitts and Nevis.
He suggested that an amendment should be made to Section 4(1) of the Constitution with a new proviso.
Quoting Section 4(1), James said, “A person shall not be deprived of his life intentionally save in execution of the sentence of a Court in respect of a criminal offence of Treason or Murder under the Law of which he has been convicted.”
He requested that the Attorney-General direct the Legal Draftsman to remove the period and insert a colon with the following Proviso, or words to the effect: “Provided that if the sentence of death which was pronounced by the Court has not been committed to life by the Governor-General, such a sentence of death shall be carried out at anytime, notwithstanding any delay whatsoever in carrying out the said sentence of death.”
The veteran Attorney-at-Law added that if this were to succeed in a referendum and the constitutional amendment to Section 4(1) is amended, especially due to the increase of murders, then the Pratt and Morgan decision would be no more a fetter on the government’s resumption of capital punishment in the Federation.
The last person to have been executed in the twin-island Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis was Charles Elroy Laplace on December 19, 2008, and this act had evoked worldwide outcry of the death penalty being a cruel, inhumane and degrading punishment and is ineffective in the fight against crime.
In a press release, human rights activist group Amnesty International stated that the organisation strongly objected to the hanging of Laplace and described it as a “shameless act”.
The release read: “Amnesty International considers the execution of Charles Elroy Laplace carried out in St. Kitts and Nevis on Friday 19th December as a shameless human rights development for the country after 10 years of moratorium.
“The world is turning away from the use of death penalty. Before last Friday’s execution, since 2003, the United States has been the only country in the Americas to carry out executions, even in the USA there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of executions in recent years. One hundred and thirty seven countries have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice and only 24 nations carried out executions in 2007. Huge swathes of the world are now free from executions.”
And in celebration of the Ninth World Day Against The Death Penalty on October 10, 2011, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and European Affairs, Alain Juppé said that the death penalty is not justice, but rather bears witness to the failure of justice.
“It serves no useful purpose in combating criminality. The loss of life that it induces is irreparable and no legal system is safe from the risk of an error of justice,” he added.
Juppé noted that it has been 30 years since France had abolished the death penalty and, since then, 139 countries have adopted an abolitionist legal position or a de facto moratorium, adding that the majority of United Nations member states have discarded this form of punishment and further progress continues to be made.
“To me,” he opined, “this is evidence of veritable awareness on a world-wide scale, and reaffirmation of the universal nature of Human Rights. But I cannot lose sight of the fact, despite the progress achieved, that the struggle for universal abolition must be continued on all the continents of the world.”
Juppé applauded the determined efforts of the defenders of Human Rights and the NGOs, the involvement, which he stressed, is essential in the combat in which “we are together engaged”.
Should these men be made to pay through execution for the crimes which the various courts have found them guilty, or should their death sentences be commuted to life imprisonment?
What are your views?
