NICHOLSONATTORNEY-GENERAL A.J. Nicholson has hit back at claims that the Government has neglected a Jamaican awaiting the death penalty in Florida. Senator Nicholson said it would be inappropriate for the Government to apply pressure, political or otherwise, on the Governor of Florida regarding the case. Jamaica, he noted, would not interfere in the judicial process of the United States.
Lance Armstrong was sentenced to death by lethal injection for murdering a Florida policeman in 1990, but hopes to avoid this fate with his clemency hearing on April 14, to be held in the Broward County Circuit Court in that state.
In an article published in last week's Sunday Gleaner, Mr. Armstrong's lawyer, David Rowe, said the Jamaican Government was his client's only hope for clemency, but accused the Jamaican consulate in Miami of ignoring his requests for support and failing to visit him during his 16 years of imprisonment.
NOT TRUE
"This is simply not true," responded Mr. Nicholson in a letter to the newspaper. He said that the consulate had visited Mr. Armstrong on February 15 in response to a request from his mother, and that previously, he had made no requests for support.
"The Jamaican Government sympathises with Mr. Armstrong and his family and will provide any assistance that it can in supporting Mr. Armstrong as he prepares for his upcoming clemency hearing," pledged the Attorney-General.
CAN ONLY PROVIDE
'GENERAL' SUPPORT
"It can only provide general support to Mr. Armstrong through its consulate in Miami to ensure that Mr. Armstrong's general rights are protected and that his reasonable requests are addressed," he added.
The clemency hearing will not accept any possible new evidence, but decide only whether there are mitigating circumstances which may justify removing Armstrong from death row.
The threshold for any such decision, however, will be very high, particularly because Armstrong was found guilty of killing a police officer. Armstrong has always maintained he did not shoot dead Broward Sheriff's Deputy John Greeney.
At 2 a.m., on February 17, 1990, Armstrong and another man, Ercely Wayne Coleman, with whom he worked, entered a Church's Fried Chicken restaurant. A robbery and shoot-out with the police ensued, during which officer Greeney was shot dead.
Armstrong has always maintained that he was never part of the robbery, but was framed. Nevertheless, he was convicted and sentenced to die for the murder in 1991. The death sentence was thrown out on a technicality in 1993, but was later reinstated.
