Chief Justice Ivor Archie says “common sense” dictates that the death sentence was not the solution to T&T’s spiralling crime situation.
Archie was speaking at the ceremonial opening of the 2015-2016 Law Term at the Convocation Hall, Hall of Justice, Port-of-Spain earlier today.
The murder toll for 2015 crossed the 300 toll on Tuesday after a 12-year-old student was innocently killed during gang-related shooting in the Gonzales, district. The Police Service detection rate for murders stands at close to 10 per cent but the conviction rate is far less.
The last State-sanctioned execution took place in 1999, when Dole Chadee and his gang of eight were executed for the quadruple murders of the Baboolal family. Another man, Anthony Briggs, was also executed that year for the murder of a PH taxi driver.
Since then, the legislation proposing to categorise murders into first and second degrees has been laid in Parliament and debated but was never approved.
There has been a chorus of dissent by some in society to move away from the Privy Council, this country’s highest appellate court, in favour of the Caribbean Court of Justice, after landmark ruling which deemed the mandatory death penalty as unconstitutional.
“Over the past few years the number of persons awaiting trial for murder has risen to more than 514. Common sense tells me that by itself the death penalty is not the solution,” Archie said.
“Apart from the dubiousness of its value as a deterrent, do we really believe, assuming that a significant fraction of those persons are found guilty, that we will be able to hang several hundreds of people, or that if we tried we could stomach it?” Archie asked.
Archie questioned the pragmatism behind implementing the death penalty and if T&T could really handle putting a large number of people to death if they were to be found guilty of murder.
“Please do not misunderstand me. The question whether we have a mandatory death penalty or any death penalty at all is a matter for the legislature and the people of T&T, but as the ones who pass the death sentences, we must ask, is there a sense in futility in doing so? And we must ask questions about the tactical difficulties of implementation. What are we going to do? Schedule one a day, or do it in groups? So what is the real problem and what can we do about it?” he said.
Before stating that the death penalty was not a solution, Archie said that a criminal case takes a long period of time to be completed.
Archie called for a reform of the way trials are done from the beginning of the indictment to the end of the trial.