The Editor, Sir:

I wonder how many of the advocates of a pardon for the policeman who would have framed a murder accused also support capital punishment. The judge who sentenced the policeman to a six-month term showed great mercy, perhaps more than warranted by the officer's confession.

In my view, the issue that the case raises should not be about pardon, but about capital punishment. How many innocent Jamaican men will be hanged if and when capital punishment is resumed in Jamaica?

Most persuasive argument

When the British Parliament abolished the death penalty in the late 1960s, the most persuasive argument for abolition was that it was better for 100 guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to be executed.

The catalyst for abolition was, ironically, a confession. A man named Timothy John Evans had been charged, tried, convicted and hanged many years before for multiple murders. The Evans family had lost their breadwinner with dire consequences for their standard of living, their emotional health, their social standing, their family life and their children's education.

Suddenly, the real murderer of Timothy John Evans' alleged victims confessed to the murders and led the police to the remains of the victims buried underground. Parliament then posthumously granted Timothy John Evans a free pardon and went on to abolish the death penalty.

The notion that, confession or no confession, a pardon should be granted to a liar who would cause another person to be hanged by framing him is obscene.

I am, etc.,

LOUIS MARRIOTT

janow@flowja.com