Gov’t To Legislate Death Sentence Guidelines:
By Myles Adderley -
Nassau, Bahamas:

The government plans to bring a bill to parliament, which would outline sentencing guidelines for murder convicts, Attorney General Claire Hepburn has revealed.

The government plans to bring a bill to parliament, which would outline sentencing guidelines for murder convicts, Attorney General Claire Hepburn has revealed.

Mrs. Hepburn’s revelation comes as the courts continue to face challenges in deciding what sentence a murder convict should get.

After the Privy Council ruled last year that the mandatory death sentence in The Bahamas is unconstitutional, then Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson said there was no need to amend any laws to provide guidelines for trial judges to follow before deciding what sentence to hand down to a convicted murderer.

But President of the Court of Appeal Dame Joan Sawyer believes differently, and so does Mrs. Hepburn, who said the plan is to have such a law passed before the end of the year.

She indicated that there would be a range of sentences for murder convicts.

"These will range from the death penalty to life imprisonment or an even lesser sentence. I’m not trying to avoid our responsibility; we’ve been in office for four months," Ms. Hepburn said.

In March 2006, the Privy Council quashed the death sentence of Trono Davis and Forrester Bowe, two convicted murderers, and ruled that it is unconstitutional for trial judges to automatically sentence murder convicts to death.

She made it clear though that the government was not seeking to dictate to judges how matters before them ought to turn out.

"A judge always exercises his or her discretion on legal principles. It’s not, ‘I just wake up in the morning, look at [someone] and I say he looks like such a nice, quiet boy; he really can’t be that bad, so I’ll just give him a [small sentence]."

Ms. Hepburn said she has complete confidence that judges always make their judgments based on legal principles.

"Sometimes people don’t quite understand when you talk about using [one’s] discretion, but a judicial discretion is much different. It has to be exercised within the parameters of certain legal principles," she said.

President of the Court of Appeal Dame Joan Sawyer indicated last week that the court was in a bind because there is no law that clearly articulates the sentencing process for murder convicts.

She noted that parliament had more than a year to pass relevant legislation, but failed to do so.

Since the ruling against the mandatory death sentence last year, some attorneys have been arguing that there ought to be legal guidelines to follow before determining what sentence a murder convict ought the get, as the Privy Council has ruled essentially that there are varying degrees of murder.

The situation has become more challenging given that the law does not stipulate what constitutes a life sentence.

Just last Wednesday, Murrio Ducille, Trono Davis’ attorney, argued that since parliament has neglected to put legislation in place for an alternative sentence to the death penalty for convicted murderers, courts should resort to a section of the Penal Code that states that where no sentence for a felony has been stipulated the trial judge should impose a seven-year sentence.

Since the Privy Council ruling, some convicted murderers have received life sentences, including some who had previously been sentenced to death.

President of the Bahamas Bar Association Wayne Munroe recently said the imposition of the death penalty without certain clearly defined criteria would continue to create a problem unless the matter is dealt with once and for all.

Mrs. Hepburn said as far as murder cases that are presently before the courts are concerned, nothing can be done until there are judgments in those matters.

"These persons have all been re-sentenced by the Supreme Court; none has been given the death sentence and they are now challenging the sentence that they have received from the Supreme Court. Insofar as what we’re going to do about them, we will have to wait until the court hands down its judgment," Mrs. Hepburn said.

She said the government cannot legislate the certain discretion that judges use to cast judgments.

19 September 2007