Tyrone Reid, Staff ReporterAFTER AN almost two-decade sabbatical and a history of heated debates with no clear intention of when the next condemned person would go to the gallows, there is still hope for the resumption of hanging.
Delroy Chuck, the Opposition's spokesman on Justice has re-ignited the debate with an invitation to the government to state specifically how much more time is needed to facilitate hanging of condemned individuals.
Previously, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) resisted the government's proposal to amend the constitution. "Let them say how many years they need and we will consider it ..." stressed Mr. Chuck.
Karl Samuda, the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) general secretary, told The Sunday Gleaner that his party "will be only too willing to help the process to reduce crime in Jamaica, and we have displayed that in the past."
While shifting his stance, Mr. Chuck stated that for an agreement to be reached a specific number of years must be put forward by the government because his party would not support having men on death row for 10 or 15 years.
SPECIFIC TIME LIMIT
In response, Mr. Nicholson, the Attorney-General, said he was willing to discuss the matter. As it related to a specific time limit, Mr. Nicholson hinted that he would ask for an additional two years on the five years stipulated in the Pratt and Morgan ruling.
"In the Pratt and Morgan case the Privy Council concluded that in Europe matters of capital punishment, seven years is the time allotted, so why is it that they allotted five years to us?" questioned Mr. Nicholson.
Six await fateTHE NUMBER of prisoners on death row has dwindled since last year. Now, only six persons on the island are currently on the lonely isle for condemned men, while the fate of dozens more hang in the balance.
Official figures from the Department of Corrections show that up to August last year 45 inmates were given death sentences. However, the Lambert Watson ruling of 2004 passed down by the Privy Council rendered the mandatory death sentence unconstitutional.
As a result, the 45 condemned prisoners were given new sentence hearings. In August 2005, sixteen death row inmates faced the music. Ten of the condemned inmates escaped the long walk back to death row and by extension the hangman's noose, as their sentences were commuted to life.
However, the other six were not so lucky because they were placed back on the block of death and are now staring down the winding barrel of possibly being the first to be hanged in almost 20 years. The other inmates, who were on death row prior to the Lambert Watson ruling, are now awaiting their fate.
Less than two weeks ago, one of the six inmates, who was given the death sentence a second time, committed suicide, leaving only five men currently awaiting the gallows.
A BUILD-UP IN POPULATION
Major Richard Reese, commissioner of Corrections told The Sunday Gleaner that the more persons commuted to life the more strenuous it is on the state's budget. "Even without hanging that causes a build-up in population and the ageing of the population results in an increase in medical and psychiatric costs."
Major Reese revealed that the number of persons serving life sentences has risen to almost 700 over the years. This, he said, is a major contributor to the problem of overcrowding in our nation's penal institution. "Logically, if commuted to life sentence, that results in a build-up of and overcrowding in our centres, because the man who becomes a lifer has no end date," he said.
- T.R.
