Former Death Row inmate gets sentence commuted to manslaughter

Jun 20, 2018 News

Mark Samuels, a former death row inmate, had his sentence commuted to manslaughter by the Court of Appeal, yesterday.
The ruling was handed down by an Appellate panel consisted of Chancellor Justice Yonette Cummings –Edwards; Chief Justice, (Ag) Roxane George-Wiltshire S.C and Justice Rishi Persaud.

Mark Samuels

In 2009, Samuels was sentenced to death for the murder of his reputed wife.
He, however, petitioned the Appeal Court asking for the murder conviction to be overturned and the death penalty commuted on the grounds of “severity.”
Yesterday, the Appeal Court essentially ruled in favour of arguments presented by his Attorney, Sonia Parag.
The attorney had, among other things, contended that the judge misdirected the jury by saying, “as long as you find that they have been able to satisfy you so that you feel sure that he did it, and then you do not consider any issue of manslaughter, it is murder or nothing. There is no evidence to say that the person was acting in self-defence or in any other excusable manner, it is either that or nothing.”
Yesterday, the Court commuted the murder conviction to manslaughter and instead sentenced Samuels to serve 20 years in prison for the crime. The Court also ordered that the time Samuels spent on remand pending his trial be deducted from that sentence. The former death row inmate is suffering from cataract in both eyes and is said to be totally blind.
In 2009, he was sentenced to death for the murder of his reputed wife Chandrawattie Lalla, called Anjie.
The sentence was imposed by Justice James Bovell-Drakes after a mixed 12-member jury found Samuels guilty of the crime.
The killing occurred at the couple’s Grove Squatting Area, residence some time between November 23 and November 24, 2007. According to reports, Samuels was found lying in the same room on a mattress, not far from the decomposed body of his wife, which bore marks of violence.
It was the stench from the body that caused neighbours and the police to discover the decomposed body with protruding eyes. The woman was found on a bed covered with a blood-stained sheet.
Samuels is said to have confessed to the crime to the police.
When first questioned by the police, Samuels confessed to the crime, adding, “I fed up wid she. I lashed her with a piece of wood. I kill she.”
However, during his trial in Court, Samuels changed his story and told the jury that the oral confession was a fabrication by the police. He claimed, “My wife left home that weekend and said that she was attending her daughter’s birthday party.
After she left, I too left home for Parika where I had drinks with some friends. When I returned home the following day, I noticed that my wife was in bed. When I observed her properly, I realised that she was dead.
Samuels said in his defence, “I did not kill my wife, Chandrawattie – I went home and found her on the bed dead.”
The jury obviously did not believe his story; hence the death sentence.
However at the Court of Appeal, the condemned man through Attorney-at-law, Sonia Parag, argued that the mandatory death penalty, as existed in 2009, contravened Article 141 (1) of the Constitution, which provides that “No person shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading punishment or other treatment.”
Counsel representing the state, however, has submitted that Samuels’ sentence was imposed before the Criminal Law Offences Act was amended in 2010 to give judges a discretion as to whether or not to impose the death sentence.
The state has emphasized that at the time the capital punishment was imposed upon the appellant, it was the mandatory sentence for a conviction of murder.
However, Samuels contended that the trial judge misdirected the jury by failing to sufficiently direct or warn about oral statements he allegedly made and the manner in which it needed to treat with such evidence by the police.
Parag contended, too, that the judge misdirected the jury by saying, “as long as you find that they have been able to satisfy you so that you feel sure that he did it, then you do not consider any issue of manslaughter; it is murder or nothing.
“There is no evidence to say that the person was acting in self-defence or in any other excusable manner, it is either that or nothing.”

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