Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Crim­i­nol­o­gist and for­mer chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) Prof Ramesh De­osaran says the Gov­ern­ment has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to make clear its stance on the re­sump­tion of the death penal­ty.

De­osaran al­so urged the pub­lic to con­sid­er the pre­vail­ing na­tion­al sen­ti­ment to­wards crime as it weighs on the mat­ter.

Dur­ing a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing on Thurs­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her Gov­ern­ment in­tend­ed to re­sume ex­e­cu­tions, but not­ed that out of the 38 in­mates on death row, 20 could not be ex­e­cut­ed by hang­ing be­cause they fell un­der the Pratt and Mor­gan rul­ing.

She said the oth­er 18 al­so could not be ex­e­cut­ed as they all still had on­go­ing ap­peals.

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions via email yes­ter­day, De­osaran said At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie should tell the pub­lic what was re­quired for the Gov­ern­ment to ex­e­cute the law re­gard­ing the death penal­ty with­in the five-year pe­ri­od.

De­osaran as­sert­ed that “ar­ti­fi­cial re­search” could not re­li­ably prove the death penal­ty was not a de­ter­rent to crime, and re­ferred to his own ex­pe­ri­ence as an in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor dur­ing the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) regime, where the pub­lic’s opin­ion on the death penal­ty was sought.

“From the re­port, some 80 per cent sup­port­ed the death penal­ty.”

De­osaran said the sense of fear caused by crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty should be a ma­jor con­sid­er­a­tion for the Gov­ern­ment as its mem­bers de­lib­er­at­ed the mat­ter.

“This is a mat­ter of hu­man­i­tar­i­an­ism, pro­tec­tion and sym­pa­thy for the ris­ing num­ber of cit­i­zens who are dai­ly in­vad­ed and bru­tal­ly mur­dered.

“This is, there­fore, so­cial jus­tice for them.

“The per­son­al feel­ings of elect­ed politi­cians or judges should not ob­struct their oath-tak­en du­ty,” De­osaran said.

How­ev­er, hu­man rights ad­vo­cate Denise Pitch­er con­tend­ed that at a time when most coun­tries were mov­ing away from the death penal­ty, the Gov­ern­ment should seek more hu­mane ways of deal­ing with crim­i­nals.

Pitch­er ar­gued that in­sti­tut­ing ex­e­cu­tions could pos­si­bly make so­ci­ety even more vi­o­lent.

“With the death penal­ty, there is a bru­tal­is­ing ef­fect to so­ci­ety.

“If we’re en­deav­our­ing to be a more hu­mane so­ci­ety, the de­fault re­sponse can­not be more vi­o­lence.

“If in our na­tion­al psy­che the de­fault re­sponse is vi­o­lence, you’re just pro­mot­ing a more vi­o­lent so­ci­ety,” she sug­gest­ed.

Pitch­er said that while the con­cerns over in­creas­ing­ly vi­o­lent crime were a valid fear for many cit­i­zens, she main­tained that ex­e­cu­tions were not a vi­able so­lu­tion to these chal­lenges.

Re­fer­ring to in­stances where peo­ple may have been wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed, Pitch­er said the con­se­quences of an er­ror at the lev­el of the courts could have fa­tal con­se­quences for peo­ple ac­cused of mur­der.

“No jus­tice sys­tem is per­fect; it’s all prone to er­rors and even the slight­est er­ror can re­sult in some­one be­ing giv­en the death penal­ty.

“If there is a wrong­ful con­vic­tion, you can re­verse the de­ci­sion, but you can’t re­verse some­one be­ing ex­e­cut­ed,” Pitch­er ex­plained.

Pitch­er said the re­moval of peo­ple con­vict­ed of mur­der with a sen­tence of life­time im­pris­on­ment, but not­ed that long-term mech­a­nisms to deal with vi­o­lence at a so­ci­etal lev­el would be need­ed.

The last time Trinidad and To­ba­go car­ried out the death penal­ty was in Ju­ly 1999, when An­tho­ny Brig­gs was hanged for the mur­der of a taxi dri­ver dur­ing a rob­bery.

A month be­fore, Dole Chadee, al­so called Nankissoon Boodram, and eight mem­bers of his gang were hanged for the mur­der of the Ba­boolal fam­i­ly.