In a land­mark rul­ing, the Court of Ap­peal yes­ter­day gave de­tailed ad­vice to tri­al judges on the sen­tenc­ing of ac­cused peo­ple, who are al­lowed to plead guilty to mur­der.Three ap­pel­late judges gave the sen­tenc­ing guide­lines while rul­ing in favour of three men who ad­mit­ted to mur­der­ing a taxi dri­ver dur­ing a rob­bery in 2002 and were sen­tenced to "life im­pris­on­ment with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of pa­role".

The thee men–Alexan­der Don Juan Nicholas, 36, Gre­go­ry Tan, 35, and Oren Lewis, 31–be­came the first peo­ple to be al­lowed to plead guilty to mur­der in T&T's his­to­ry, when they did so be­fore Jus­tice An­dre Mon De­sir in the San Fer­nan­do High Court, last De­cem­ber.In al­low­ing the ap­peal, Jus­tice Paula Mae-Weekes, Al­ice Yorke Soo-Hon and Ra­jen­dra Nar­ine agreed with the trio's lawyers that the sen­tence im­posed on the men was "un­known to law" as there were no pro­vi­sion for pa­role in lo­cal leg­is­la­tion.

In­stead the court ruled that the trio's sen­tence should have been 30 years' im­pris­on­ment.How­ev­er, they will on­ly serve 18 years and ten months of the sen­tence, as the court de­duct­ed the pe­ri­od they spent on re­mand await­ing tri­al and the time they spent in prison af­ter be­ing sen­tenced.In a 25-page judg­ment, head of the ap­peal pan­el, Weekes, not­ed that a tri­al judge had the dis­cre­tion to im­pose the death penal­ty in cas­es where the facts of the crime could be con­sid­ered the "worst of the worst" or the "rarest of the rare."

How­ev­er, Weekes said the trio's in­ci­dent did not fall in that cat­e­go­ry, while say­ing: "Our so­ci­ety has un­for­tu­nate­ly ex­pe­ri­enced mur­ders far more dis­turb­ing, re­volt­ing and de­viant than per­pe­trat­ed by the ap­pel­lants."Weekes al­so ad­vised that tri­al judges could still pass the death sen­tence on an ac­cused per­son even if pros­e­cu­tors did not sug­gest it.The judge al­so said tri­al judges could on­ly con­sid­er life sen­tences where there was ev­i­dence that the con­vict­ed per­son was be­yond re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.

She not­ed that in that case the trio's at­tor­neys al­so pro­vid­ed pro­ba­tion of­fi­cers re­ports which showed they were re­morse­ful and had shown pos­i­tive signs of re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion while on re­mand, await­ing tri­al. "Apart from the cir­cum­stances of the of­fence, what must loom large in con­sid­er­ing whether a life sen­tence is ap­pro­pri­ate is the pos­si­bil­i­ty or like­li­hood of the ap­pel­lant be­ing re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed to the ex­tent that he could be safe­ly re­turned to so­ci­ety," Weekes said.

Ac­cord­ing to the State's case in their tri­al the trio, along with an­oth­er man, board­ed Boodoo's ve­hi­cle in Ari­ma and pre­tend­ed to be pas­sen­gers and then hi­jacked him.Nicholas drove Boodoo's car while the oth­er two beat him in the back seat.Tan and Lewis used Boodoo's belt to choke him. They put his body in the trunk and went to a gas sta­tion where they bought snacks with the $63 they stole from him.

They then threw his body in­to the Ma­yaro riv­er and at­tempt­ed to sell his car for parts be­fore be­ing ar­rest­ed.Tan was rep­re­sent­ed by Jagdeo Singh. Kei­th Scot­land and Asha Watkins-Montserin rep­re­sent­ed Nicholas while Daniel Khan ap­peared for Lewis. Dana See­ta­hal, SC, and Ria Reyes ap­peared for the State.