The latest heart-wrenching chapter in the Sean Luke story culminated with the sentences handed down Wednesday on the two men convicted of the six-year-old boy’s brutal murder—minimum mandatory terms of 17 and a half years and 11 and a half years respectively for Akeel Mitchell and Richard Chatoo.
The death sentence was off the table in this case because Luke’s killers were themselves minors when they lured him into a cane field on March 26, 2006. An autopsy done on his decomposing body, which was found two days after he went missing, showed that he died of internal injuries and bleeding after being sodomised with a sugarcane stalk.
These and many other harrowing details recounted during the virtual trial which ended last month have only added to public outrage over what is now widely perceived as light sentences for Mitchell and Chatoo.
But in her ruling, High Court Judge Lisa Ramsumair-Hinds was careful to explain that the convicted killers would only be eligible for release, on a license, if a judge is convinced that they have been sufficiently rehabilitated and are no longer a threat to society.
In calculating the sentences for the duo, who were 13 and 16 when Luke was killed, Justice Ramsumair-Hinds began with a starting point of 35 years for Mitchell and 33 years for Chatoo. The time they spent in prison while awaiting trial was also factored into her decision.
The extremely slow pace of justice in this case, which took 15 long years to get to the point of conviction and sentencing, has resulted in a struggle for closure for almost everyone connected with this tragic incident, particularly Luke’s mother, Pauline Lum Fai.
Grief, anger and frustration were clear in her immediate reaction to the sentences.
“I don’t care, I stop caring about lawyers, judges, magistrates, the court,” she told Guardian Media in an interview moments after the sentencing.
Those raw emotions are shared by many—victims and accused alike—who have experienced the many dysfunctional aspects of T&T’s criminal justice system. It is a problem that has been further aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic with cases now being heard virtually.
But the delivery of justice has long been hampered by issues within the judiciary, as well as the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the T&T Police Service. Legislative and operational adjustments have brought about only incremental improvements to the system, and these gains are regularly eroded by staff and other shortages that have become endemic in the justice system.
As a result, the length of time taken to complete the trial of Sean Luke’s killers is, unfortunately, the norm rather than the exception.
There are other cases still incomplete and of longer duration within the system, notably among them the protracted Piarco Two preliminary inquiry into fraud charges arising out of the construction of the $1.6 billion Piarco International Airport. That matter, currently on record as the longest-running and largest fraud case in this country’s history, has to be restarted because of the retirement of former Senior Magistrate Ejenny Espinet.
The sentencing of Luke’s killers should have brought about some closure to his family. Instead, the anguish his mother expressed on hearing the judge’s decision shows the mental and emotional cost of justice long delayed.