ST GEORGE’S, Grenada (CMC) – A Grenadian man who was found guilty of a double murder in 1988 but had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment in 1991,  will be re-sentenced after a High Court declared that his commutation by the Mercy Committee was unconstitutional.

Rudolf Hall was among a group of prisoners known as the Grenada 17 whose sentence to death was commuted in 1991 by the Advisory Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy.

The Grenada 17 include 14 members of the former Grenada government and three soldiers who were charged and convicted with the 1983 murders of the then left-wing prime minister Maurice Bishop and members his cabinet.

On March 16, 1988, Hall, then 23 years old, came upon  22-year-old Benson Williams and 19-year-old  Diane Marshall in a vehicle having sex. He allegedly wanted to have sex with the woman, and when she refused, he fired five bullets into the car injuring them. Williams died three days later, and the woman six days later.

His attorney, Jerry Edwin, sought relief under Grenada’s Constitution arguing the automatic sentence of death passed for double murder in 1988 became retrospectively illegal owing to evolving case law from the 2000s.

Hall, through his attorney, argued that commutation of his sentence in 1991 by the Governor General to life imprisonment, being commutation of an unlawful sentence, became retrospectively unlawful.

His attorney argued that his client’s current imprisonment at the Richmond Hill prison is not under lawful sentence and is requesting that the High Court Order his release, with a declaration that he has been illegally detained since 1991, or in the alternative re-sentence him so that his sentence becomes lawful.

On July 21 this year, Justice Iain Morley KC ruled that Hall be re-sentenced by High Court so that his sentence becomes lawful under Grenada’s law.

The judge in his ruling declared the 1991 commutation retrospectively unconstitutional and ordered that Hall, lawfully convicted of double-murder in 1988, shall remain remanded in custody for sentence, as a re-sentence, in Grenada, with expedition by an Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC) High Court Judge, to be appointed by the chief justice.

It is expected that the re-sentence will occur during the upcoming sitting of the assizes which will start in September 2025.

Hall, according to the judgement, was at one point recommended for release on 13 December 2013 by the prison review committee, under the prerogative of mercy guided by section 72 of the constitution. It is not known why he was not released in 2013.