The death penalty in The Bahamas is dead

By Dennis Dames:


Let’s face it. When one is sentenced to death in The Bahamas, these days it really means life in prison. The condemned prisoner knows that all he has to do is appeal and wait on the commutation call, or total freedom in some cases.

The death penalty in the Americas has been corrupted for centuries and used as a brutal tool of racism; especially against the black man and other minority groups. After the advent of DNA, the death penalty was found guilty of the murder or false imprisonment of countless innocent victims – and new ones are added almost daily – after further review.

Only heaven knows the millions of convicted and innocent death penalty victims throughout the ages – whose names will never be vindicated, as there is no available DNA evidence to clear them accordingly.

The death penalty will always be corrupt because innocent people are also victims of it. The death penalty is simply a legal bully in The Bahamas because it is truly shameful and scandalous to have such a deadly thing hanging over one’s head. Maybe that’s why hanging is still on our law books.

In the meantime, the death penalty in The Bahamas is enjoying the publicity, knowing full well that it will die on the unemployment line.

What's the precise meaning of the death penalty test imposed by the London-based Privy Council?

Call To End Confusion Over Death Penalty

Tribune242:



ONE of the country’s top judges has called for an end to the confusion surrounding the imposition of the death penalty.

 

Amid escalating crime and growing calls for capital punishment, Court of Appeal President Justice Anita Allen said the precise meaning of the death penalty test imposed by the London-based Privy Council must be made clear.

 

“We’ve considered these decisions, listened to and appreciate the concerns of the public and what the Constitutional Commission has recommended. I suggest that the time has come to bring clarity to the dispensation of justice in these cases,” Justice Allen said.

 

Speaking to politicians and members of the judiciary yesterday during the annual special sitting of the Court of Appeal, she noted that a 2006 Privy Council decision outlawed the mandatory death sentence for murderers then on the books, and made capital punishment discretionary.

 

But, Justice Allen said, the high court’s definition of a capital case as the “worst of the worst or the rarest of the rare” has caused “consternation in the ranks of legal scholars and the general public at large.”

 

“The test,” she said, “even appears to confound judicial thinking as (Privy Council member) Lord Kerr himself admitted in the case of Maxo Tido, when he said that the epithet ‘worst of the worst and rarest of the rare’ gave rise to conceptual difficulty as to which cases qualify for the death penalty.”

 

Responding to calls for the Privy Council to be replaced by the Caribbean Court of Justice, the government-appointed Constitutional Commission warned last year that this move would not necessarily lead to a different stance on capital punishment, or eliminate concerns about “foreignness”.

 

“In reality, London is not much further away from Nassau than Port-of-Spain (Trinidad),” the commission said.

 

Justice Allen’s call for clarity comes on the heels of anti-crime activist Rodney Moncur’s claim that his upcoming march to “remove impediments to capital punishment” will attract thousands of participants.

 

“The society is tired of the number of murders and mayhem which are taking place in the Bahamas and we believe these murders can be reduced through swift justice,” said Mr Moncur.

 

“We are marching once again to bring pressure on the Parliament of the Bahamas to remove all of the impediments which prevent persons charged with murder from getting bail and to move all of the impediments which prevent murderers from being executed.”

 

The last person executed in the Bahamas was David Mitchell in January 2000.

 

He was convicted of stabbing two German tourists to death.

 

Mitchell’s execution was controversial because it was carried out while he had an appeal pending before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

 

International criticism of the move was followed by a moratorium on capital punishment which lasted until the Privy Council’s 2006 decision in the case of Maxo Tido.

 

January 31, 2014

 

Tribune 242

Say no to capital punishment in The Bahamas

NO TO CAPITAL PUNISHMENT


By The Bahama Journal



Human rights do matter; and so does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Clearly, then, the right to life should be considered and described as the world’s number one right thing owed every human person.

This is why – and here closer to home – we pray for the soon-coming realization of our hope which tells us that, we should and must work with all who would in the first instance, obtain a legal moratorium on capital punishment and thereafter, work for the abolition of the death penalty in The Bahamas.

In this regard, take note that this Wednesday past [December 10th. 2008] marked the sixtieth anniversary of one of humanity’s truly great discoveries; to wit, the revelation and recognition that all human beings do have certain inalienable rights.

It is also to be noted that this initiative was spearheaded by former U.S. first lady and U.N. delegate Eleanor Roosevelt, the UDHR guaranteed the political and civic rights of all people, including the right to freedom from torture, slavery, poverty, homelessness and other forms of oppression.

Note also, this Wednesday past marked an important occasion which – regrettably – went unnoticed by practically anyone in media who could have and should have known that, billions of people around the world were – even then- marking the tenth anniversary of the “World Day Against The Death Penalty.

Here we are reminded that this celebration was launched by the “World Coalition Against the Death Penalty” in 2002.

In truth, even though more and more countries are abolishing capital punishment, 57 countries still adhere to the practice.  Amnesty International says 20,000 people worldwide are currently on death row.

Sadly, some who now languish in this tormented state are born and bred products of states and peoples in our region.

Sadder yet, there remains a hue and cry from Guyana and Trinidad in the south to The Bahamas in the north for the resumption of this barbaric practice.

But yet [and notwithstanding the blood-curdling cry for blood coming fro the lips of hundreds of Bahamians, we remain confident that – when all things are said and done – this barbarism will be brought to an end.

We are also confident that, those who now run things will – sooner rather than later – join in with that growing majority of mankind who has decided to put an end to this vestige of utter backwardness and depravity.

We remain ever optimistic.

And yet, the truth remains which so ably demonstrates that, Bahamians from practically all walks of life have been transfixed by what they describe as a so-called crime wave.

Most of these people are becoming more and more appalled by the spiraling rate of murder, rape and other instance of carnage and social mayhem.

But as bad as these things now seem, on examination and closer scrutiny they pale in significance to what we would deem the real crime menace in The Bahamas.  That real menace being the social rot that provides the breeding ground for those instances when — as they say — things get out of hand.

It is this rot that provides the ground for the efflorescence of those offences that grab public attention, matters like murder, rape and bloody robberies.

We have previously suggested that the crime rate is little more than the fever chart of a sick society.  By extension, we would wish to suggest that the current focus on policing might well be an exercise in futility.

As the street-wise know so very well some of these deals would involve the trade in guns, drugs, other contraband and certain counterfeit goods.

We make this point in the same breath as we note that there is an abundance of evidence that strongly supports the conclusion that The Bahamas is home to tens of thousands of people who routinely flout the laws of the land.

These offences range from the crimes committed by those people who routinely smuggle goods into and out of The Bahamas to those offences that are routinely committed by rogue police officers and other thugs in uniform.

And so, things become ever more foul as the state gets in on those practices which – taken in their entirety – not only lead from deprivation that ends in poverty but which also conduces to producing criminals and any number of cut-throats; thence the cry that these people should be killed.

This is dreadfully wrong.

11 October, 2012

Jones Bahamas