The death penalty

Dear Mrs Macaulay,

How do you feel about hanging? There has been so many murders of children, men and women. Do you agree that their killers should be hanged?

I am completely opposed to the death penalty. I have yet to know of any time in history, and in any country whatsoever, when the death penalty or capital punishment, has been a deterrent to the committing of murder.

It is my view that the rate of murder of women, children and men in Jamaica has increased because of the failure to apprehend those who commit murder. I believe it is irrefutable that the most effective deterrent to crime, is the fear of apprehension. The fear of being caught is the deterrent, because you have to be apprehended first, with clear and irrefutable evidence against you, which stands up in trial and leads to conviction before the question of punishment arises. The crime solving of our police force resulting from careful, detailed, scientific, reliable and professional investigations is something that we still hope to achieve. Therefore, those with criminal intent feel a sense of security, that they can commit crimes within impunity because they are not likely to be caught at all. Then we have the sad problem, or should I say the failure in or administration of justice, which also gives to people with criminal intent, a certain and absolute sense of security because they know that it would take an inordinately long time for them to be tried. In fact, in certain instances, the matter is completely thrown out of court because of a failure of the State to prosecute the matter.

I know from my experience, when I use to practice in the criminal courts, that the cases presented by the Crown were largely based on the police acting on “information received” or on “extracted” confessions with no other “evidence” to support the purported confession. Those of us who appeared in those cases which resulted in convictions by jurors who were clearly not interested in most of the evidence which was adduced and in the submissions, especially of the defence, know the mental torment such convictions caused, because we knew the weakness of the evidence and the system. One lived with the certainty that too often an innocent person had been convicted.

I speak of “extracted” confessions because I was indeed involved in the representation of accused persons who had been tortured and who, as a result, acceded to the direction of the police to sign confessions. My late husband and I were involved in a second trial – the case Regina vs Glenroy Watson – which appears in the law reports, in which the accused had been tortured by the police who tied electric cable on his testicles with a wet brick at the end, straddling him and then kicking the brick against the wall – he of course signed the confession. He was lucky, because he happened to have been seen in the police lock-up shortly after the torture, and was given medical attention. We were able to adduce the medical evidence and call the witness to give evidence and because of this, the “confession” could not be admitted in evidence and as that was the only “evidence” against him on the charge of murder, that was the end of the case against him.

There’s also the infamous Regina vs Oliver Whylie, who was retried three times for the same offence of murder, on supposedly cogent and honest identification evidence. The Privy Council allowed his appeal, and quashed his conviction.

I know that things are not as bad as they to use to be with regards to police techniques of investigation, but I have seen too much in the practice of law to accept that some of these things, and the cutting of corners, the falsifying of evidence, and other deeds, or should I say mis-deeds, do not still occur. It would seem to me that since we do not have as yet the high level of professional investigations and an efficient and timely administration of justice, that the last thing we should wish to be engaged in is not only the chance but to my mind the certainty of killing in the name of the State and through the hand of the law, persons innocent of the crimes for which they have been convicted. Capital punishment once it is executed, cannot be reversed nor can real amends be made, when the mistake is discovered.

I would suggest that the most effective punishment for anyone convicted of murder, should be life imprisonment, with the addendum that the convict must work throughout his sentence to (1) feed himself, (2) pay over the rest of his earnings to the family of his murdered victim. I believe this would be real punishment, because he would live to work for the memory of and himself remember the person whose life he took. In addition, he will not be a complete liability to the taxpayer, and he would also learn skills so if the Parole Board so decides, will be rehabilitated if he qualifies for release. This indeed should be extended to the rest of the prison population. I believe that if we do not try in this way to rehabilitate instead of merely locking up and leaving them as idle persons, our prison population in Jamaica is going to grow by leaps and bounds each year with the corresponding need for increased taxes to pay the prison’s bill.

From my little experience, the countries which do not have a death penalty, but have a truly efficient and professional police force with a successfully high rate of arrest and convictions due to their superb investigative techniques, their rate of crime and murders is negligible. Those who believe that the imposition of the death penalty is going to result in the decrease of murders here, are misguided.

I feel very strongly of course about the brutal murders of women, children and men, and in recent times, the abducting of persons for reasons of sexual violations and murders. But, I do not think that just having the death penalty is going to protect any one of us. Yes, the person convicted, if hanged, is no more and he cannot commit any further crime, but, has he paid for his crime or as he been released from the struggle of life?

Margarette May Macaulay is an attorney-at-law and a Women’s and Children’s Rights Advocate. Send questions and comments via email to allwoman@jamaicaobserver.com or macaulaymargarette@yahoo.com.