Murder is not manslaughter

Apr 06, 2017 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

It took eight years for three persons accused of certain acts of ‘terror’ in the city in 2009 to be brought to trial. It was reported in the media that the three men pleaded guilty to the lesser count of manslaughter and to other acts and were each sentenced to nineteen years imprisonment, from which time will have to be deducted to cover their period of incarceration while awaiting trial.
There has been, in recent years, a noticeable trend in the assizes wherein persons charged with murder are being allowed by the prosecution to plead guilty to manslaughter, thereby saving themselves a possible death penalty if found guilty.
This has been a worrying trend in our courts. Those who commit murder should be allowed to face the murder charge and the severity of the penalties which such an offence attracts. So far, the families of those murdered, who have seen the perpetrators allowed to plead to manslaughter, have not complained. But it must be very painful for someone to have their relatives murdered only to find that the person gets a lesser sentence because of the prosecution accepting the lesser plea of manslaughter.
There should be some attempt by the prosecution to justify why it would have accepted a plea to a lesser count. The prosecution should do this, so as to help the families better understand the decision and to bring closure. The public is also entitled to be convinced that the decision was made in the best interest of justice.
Prosecutors may have a number of reasons why they will settle for the lesser counts. For one, the time which would have elapsed between the alleged commission of the criminal act and the trial date may have caused many witnesses to be unavailable. Some may have migrated, others would have died. The ability of these witnesses to have full recall may have been impaired. So there are a number of reasons which can justify such an approach. But when you consider that those persons who pleaded guilty to certain acts recently could, with remission of their sentence, be out of prison in the next seven years, then the public and the affected families may feel entitled to an explanation.
Another disturbing trend is the large number of confession statements. We are reading constantly about persons suddenly opening up and confessing their crimes to the police during interrogation. There have been, based on newspaper reports, an unusually large number of confession statements being made.
This has raised suspicion as to the cause of so many confessions. Some people are saying that since APNU+AFC came to power, the criminals have developed a conscience. Others believe that the police are either doing something good or something bad.
Desmond Hoyte, the President of Guyana from 1985 to 1992, at one stage, was gravely concerned about the reliance by prosecution on confession statements. He was suggesting that these statements may not have been voluntarily given.
It is important that the public have confidence in the methods of interrogation by the police. There have been rumours that in the past the police used to place black plastic bags over the heads of those they were interrogating so as to extract confession statements. This led to a suggestion that the police in Guyana should do like what is done in other developed countries, where interrogations are videotaped and the videos can be introduced as evidence.
Persons need to be brought faster to trial to ensure that the evidence is not compromised because witnesses would have died, migrated or cannot be located. This will help to reduce the need to have murder accused plead guilty to manslaughter.
The laws of Guyana should be amended to compel the police to videotape interrogation of witnesses.

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Murder is not manslaughter

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