REVISITING THE DEATH PENALTY

Oct 17, 2017 Editorial

The debate over hanging in Guyana has sparked discussions by many. It has taken on greater fervor with the recent spate of heinous murders. The capture of the convicted Bartica massacre murderer, Mark Royden Durant, also known as Royden Williams and “Smallie”, helped fuel the discussion especially since he was sentenced to death and was serving his time on Death Row.
Durant/Williams was recaptured last week Monday night in a minibus at Weldaad, West Coast Berbice after being on the run for three months.
Deeply concerned about the surge in homicides, especially the recent vicious murders of Constant Fraser, 89 and Phyllis Caesar, 77, in their home on 243 South Road, Georgetown and the brutal rape and murder of 13-year-old Leonard Archibald of Sisters Village, East Bank Berbice, the clamour for the reintroduction of hanging has become more strident.
They believe that the reinstatement of hanging could deter murderers and have recommended a fast-track mechanism for murder cases to be tried all the way to the Caribbean Court of Justice so that hangings can be resumed in the shortest possible time.
However, regional Governments have been dragging their feet on bringing back capital punishment.
There is no political will to enforce the death penalty, which remains on the statute books under the Offences against Persons Act, but is not being exercised.
The death penalty is the law and ought to be implemented until such time as the Parliament or the people see it fit to change it. But since the turn of the century, successive governments have been making excuses not to hang anyone.
It is time for the government to take a position on hanging. It is misleading and is a cop-out for it to acknowledge that it is the law but would allow the people to decide in a referendum whether or not the death penalty should be reinstated. Some churches have taken a moral position in favor of the government to exercise the death penalty. They have urged that convicted murderers be hanged given the type and degrees of murders in the country.
However, others including the Roman Catholic Church have debunked the view that capital punishment is the panacea for ridding the country of the spate of violent and senseless murders.
They claimed that the death penalty has no place in civilised, progressive societies such as ours. The question is: Do we want to run the risk of hanging people for a crime that they did not commit? They have cited evidence in the United States where in the last five years, DNA tests have exonerated over 300 people who have been on death row in 32 states.
And stressing religion, they have made it clear that no matter how heinous the crimes committed; criminals are still God’s children and are redeemed in the blood of Christ.
Opponents of hanging are of the opinion that it is a very negative way of dealing with crime. It is based on retribution, waging a vendetta against the criminals because they have done some wrong in society instead of having restorative justice.
They feel that Guyana is a punitive society which still uses corporal punishment against children. It is a society that beats children and now wants to hang criminals without taking into consideration the many punitive measures that were rendered against the disadvantaged in society.
But then again, the criminal attracts the punishment.
They have opined that the focus must be on tackling the socio-economic conditions which give rise to crime in the first place and correct the inequalities in society. They have advocated that the system should be fixed and made more even before capital punishment can be effectively carried out.

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