Fran­cis Joseph

Forty con­vict­ed killers, whose death sen­tences were com­mut­ed to ei­ther nat­ur­al life, or 75 years in prison be­cause of the Pratt and Mor­gan judg­ment, may die in prison.

That's be­cause Jus­tice Pe­ter Ra­jku­mar yes­ter­day dis­missed their con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tions in which they were seek­ing, among oth­er things, a re­sen­tenc­ing hear­ing, which could have seen them free, as six of their col­leagues who were sent home by oth­er judges in re­cent months. Ra­jku­mar pro­duced a 108-page judg­ment, three weeks af­ter he re­served rul­ing in the case of sev­en of the con­vict­ed killers–Al­lan Hen­ry, Nor­bert Williams, De­shan Ram­phar­ry, Dex­ter Lendore, Evans Xavier and Vic­tor Bap­tiste. Their case was a class ac­tion, and what­ev­er hap­pened, the oth­er 34 would be af­fect­ed.

Desmond Al­lum, SC, and Dana See­ta­hal, SC, head­ed the team of lawyers for the con­vict­ed men, while Fyard Ho­sein, SC, led the team for the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. The 40 pris­on­ers claimed they were sen­tenced to death af­ter be­ing con­vict­ed of mur­der. Af­ter the Privy Coun­cil de­ci­sion in Pratt and Mor­gan, the death sen­tences were com­mut­ed by the then pres­i­dent, Noor Has­sanali, to ei­ther im­pris­on­ment for the du­ra­tion of their nat­ur­al life, or the im­pris­on­ment of 75 years in prison. Af­ter the com­mu­ta­tions by the Pres­i­dent, the then chief jus­tice, Clin­ton Bernard, made or­ders giv­ing ef­fect to the com­mut­ed sen­tences, with­out a hear­ing be­ing af­ford­ed to the pris­on­ers.

Among the is­sues which arose in this case were whether the con­vict­ed men had any le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion as a re­sult of the dis­po­si­tion of mat­ters in­volv­ing oth­er pris­on­ers; and was the ex­er­cise of the Pres­i­dent's dis­cre­tion in re­la­tion to the com­mu­ta­tion of the death sen­tence, re­view­able? The burn­ing is­sue, ac­cord­ing to the pris­on­ers, was whether nat­ur­al life and the im­po­si­tion of 75 years in jail was "un­known to law."

In his judg­ment, Ra­jku­mar said the com­mu­ta­tions were law­ful. But as­sum­ing they were not, the judge said the rem­e­dy would not be a re­sen­tenc­ing. He said the pris­on­ers were un­der a sen­tence of death which could not be car­ried out be­cause of the Pratt and Mor­gan de­lay. He said the log­i­cal mech­a­nism of com­mut­ing the death sen­tence to life im­pris­on­ment could on­ly be done via the pre­rog­a­tive of mer­cy un­der Sec­tion 87 of the Con­sti­tu­tion. "Quash­ing the com­mu­ta­tions would have the ef­fect of re­in­stat­ing the orig­i­nal sen­tence of death with the Privy Coun­cil's pro­vi­sio that it can­not be car­ried out and should be com­mut­ed to a sen­tence of life im­pris­on­ment," Ra­jku­mar said.

He said the pris­on­ers would be en­ti­tled to re­lief by hav­ing their cas­es re­mit­ted for con­sid­er­a­tion be­fore the Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee on the Pow­er of Par­don (Mer­cy Com­mit­tee).

"It is a long way from this to as­sert that the ap­pli­cants' reme­dies man­date a fur­ther ju­di­cial re­sen­tenc­ing af­ter sen­tenc­ing at As­sizes, con­fir­ma­tion of a sen­tence at Court of Ap­peal and Privy Coun­cil, and fur­ther ap­pli­ca­tion of the prin­ci­ples and guide­lines in Pratt," the judge said. "The case for a still fur­ther ju­di­cial re­sen­tenc­ing, and a sixth con­sid­er­a­tion of pun­ish­ment has not been made out. The role of the courts in sen­tenc­ing these ap­pli­cants is at an end." Ra­jku­mar said a fur­ther re­sen­tenc­ing by the courts at this stage in­tro­duces the pos­si­bil­i­ty of dif­fer­ing sen­tences for per­sons who were all con­vict­ed of mur­der, sen­tenced to the manda­to­ry penal­ty of death, and had their sen­tences ju­di­cial­ly rec­om­mend­ed by the Privy Coun­cil as be­ing sub­ject to con­sid­er­a­tion en masse, and com­mutable to life im­pris­on­ment.

AMONG THOSE WHO LOST

�2 Al­lan Hen­ry was con­vict­ed of the mur­der of Eng­lish­man Michael Crock­er in the Port-of-Spain har­bour aboard the yacht, NYN.

�2 Michael Bul­lock was sen­tenced to death for the mur­der of Guardian free­lance jour­nal­ist, He­len Mac Gre­gor, at Cot­ton Hill, St Clair, Port-of-Spain, on April 25, 1981.

�2 God­son Nep­tune was con­vict­ed of the mur­der of his wife, Myra Nep­tune, at their West­moor­ings home