Push on for death penalty

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP):

Capital punishment is on the books across the English-speaking Caribbean, and governments are stiffening penalties and limiting appeals. At least 90 prisoners are on death row in the region, including four men who were ordered to be hanged in St Kitts and Nevis in August before a court granted a reprieve.

A primary obstacle is the London-based Privy Council, the highest court of review for many former British colonies. It ruled that sentences must be commuted to life in prison if the condemned are not executed within five years, a window some consider unreasonable because appeals are so slow.

Rising crime also plagues the Caribbean's French and British territories, but capital punishment is a political non-starter for these islands because laws would need rewriting in the abolitionist strongholds of London and Paris. The Netherlands and its Caribbean territories also outlawed capital punishment.

Jamaica hardest hit

Hit hardest is Jamaica, where more than 1,240 murders have been committed since the start of the year. But smaller resort islands are affected too. After two British honeymooners were shot dead in July in Antigua, the Government proposed the gallows for crimes involving weapons, even if the victim were not killed.

Rev Terrence Brown, of Holiness Christian Church in Jamaica's Spanish Town, is one of several prominent Jamaican churchmen pressing for executions. He said the violence was destroying families, and suggested himself a hangman to prove there would be no shortage of volunteers. The idea stirred a national debate, and despite some criticism, many have echoed his offer. "I know many persons who are willing to do it," he said.

Abolished for decades

Capital punishment has been abolished for decades in the Spanish-speaking, predominantly Catholic Dominican Republic. Religious and cultural opposition to the death penalty also holds in the United States territory of Puerto Rico, where jurors often reject federal prosecutors' requests for death.

But islanders see it as a solution in Trinidad and Tobago, where the attorney general asked legislators to amend the constitution to keep the Privy Council from interfering after British judges ordered 52 prisoners off death row in August.

"Apart from all the smoke screen that has been thrown up about whether the death penalty will reduce crime, the foremost principle is the ability of the state to carry out its laws," said Elson Crick, a spokesman for the prime minister of St Vincent, which is preparing to revise its constitution. In response to citizen demands, Crick said it would likely make executions easier.