Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

RIGHTS: Trinidad Gears Up to Resume Hangings

Peter Richards

PORT OF SPAIN, Jun 9 2005 (IPS) - Human rights and defence lawyers are scrambling to prevent the first execution in Trinidad and Tobago in six years, after the Patrick Manning government made good on its word to resume hanging following an increase in murders in the country.

Lester Pitman, 28, is scheduled to go to the gallows on Jun. 13, even though ironically, the wife of one of the three people he and another youth were convicted of murdering in 2001 says she is opposed to the death penalty.

"I question the principle of capital punishment. The society seems to accept the death penalty as a way of dealing with crime, but we do so without any public dialogue about how effective or ethical it is," Angela Cropper said in a newspaper interview.

"The more we stomach capital punishment, the more inured we become to violence," said Cropper, a Trinidad and Tobago legislator.

Pitman was convicted with 22-year-old Daniel Agard of killing Englishman John Cropper, his mother-in-law Maggie Lee, and his sister-in-law Lynette Lithgow Pearson, a former British Broadcasting Corporation television anchorwoman.

In March, the Court of Appeal ordered a new trial for Agard, but affirmed Pitman’s conviction.

The last person executed here was Anthony Briggs on Jul. 28, 1999. His execution followed the hangings of Dole Chadee and eight of his gang members over one weekend, following their conviction of murdering four members of a family in 1994.

There are 83 persons on death row in Trinidad and Tobago.

Pitman’s date with the hangman comes less than 48 hours after Attorney-General John Jeremie told legislators that the government intended to execute every person on death row "if the opportunity is available to the State".

"If the courts intervene, the state will, cognizant with the rule of law, do everything within its power to pursue the sentence of death in relation to every person on death row," he said.

Jeremie said that the government "intends to insist" that the courts, up to the London-based Privy Council, the island’s highest court, revisit the decision in the Pratt and Morgan case, which in effect prevents the death penalty being carried out after the expiration of five years, where the delay was not caused by the defendant.

The Privy Council had ruled that to carry out the execution after a five-year time frame would be unlawful since it amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.

"We do not agree with it although for the time being it binds us," said Jeremie, who also said the Manning administration was in disagreement over a recent Privy Council ruling which "in our view, in defiance of the constitution, to commute the sentences of persons on death row whose appeals were not even before them".

"We shall resist these decisions with every resource of the state," Jeremie said.

The death warrant has already been read to Pitman, even as his lawyers contend that he filed a notice with the Court of Appeal on Apr. 22 indicating his wish to appeal to the Privy Council.

"So the state has always been aware that he intended to appeal to the Council," said human rights lawyer Gregory Denzil, who is involved in a last minute attempt to halt the execution.

"In effect the state is attempting to execute him before he has exhausted his appeals," he added.

Pitman’s attorney during his trial, Wayne Sturge, said that while his client is "calm" he was not "in high spirits as anyone would expect in these circumstances."

"I think any reasonable-minded government official would know that you can’t hang someone when he has an appeal pending. I want to believe that this is a political ploy," Sturge added.

The office of the attorney-general dismissed the accusation, saying a notice of appeal does not mean an appeal had been made. It said that up to Wednesday, when the death warrant was read to Pitman, there was no appeal pending.

Some prominent lawyers, including former attorney-general Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, question whether the government can really carry out the promised execution.

"The government is engaged in rhetoric. The government knows that legislation is needed to implement on a continuous basis the death penalty," said Maharaj, who was attorney-general when the last 10 executions were carried out here.

He recalled that in 2000, the government at the time had piloted a bill to prevent persons convicted of murder from beating the system. "Their appeals before the international human rights bodies were deliberately delayed so that they fell within the protection of the decisions of the Privy Council in Pratt and Morgan."

He said the had the amendment to the constitution passed, it would have guaranteed the rights of persons convicted of murder but also made provisions for the right of the state to carry out the death penalty.

Prominent defence lawyer Desmond Allum notes that until the constitution is amended to remove the Privy Council, its decisions are binding.

Earlier this year, Trinidad and Tobago joined other Caribbean Community countries in establishing the Caribbean Court of Justice as the region’s final appeals court.

But while it has acceded to the court’s original jurisdiction, it has not done so to the appellate jurisdiction because the government needs a special majority in parliament to effect the change.

"Until the changes then, any attempt to impose hangings will be contrary to the rule of law," Allum said.

The Trinidad and Tobago Humanist Association (TTHA) has also condemned the decision to resume executions, noting that "the stark and incontrovertible fact is that there is no country in the world where hanging has reduced criminal activity."

"We know that violent crime is Trinidad and Tobago’s most urgent problem. But we will not solve it by catering to irrational, barbaric, quick-fix ideas," the TTHA said, noting that the death penalty only satisfies the "public’s thirst for revenge and giving the impression that the authorities are strong."

But public sentiments seem also divided on the death penalty issue, particularly as the island has recorded more than 155 murders so far this year.

"I find it is time they should hang all of them," Francis Mohammed told a local newspaper, while another reader, Kim Noble believes it would serve society better if the convicted killers remain in "jail until they rot there".

But Abraham Boodoo told the newspaper that while he is against the death penalty, he believes that it should be carried out only "after the criminal has taken all avenues of representation and is still found guilty."

"Then by all means he should be hanged," he added.