THE HOUSE of Representa-tives yesterday passed a Bill giving judges the option to either impose the death
penalty or life imprisonment on murder convicts.
Previously, persons convicted of capital murder were usually given the death penalty. However a ruling earlier this year from the United King-dom-based Privy Council in the case of convicted killer Lambert Watson, ruled that it was unconstitutional to impose the mandatory death sentence without judges having the option of another sentence.
The Privy Council found the mandatory death sentence under section 3 (1) (A) of the Offences Against the Person Act, to be an 'inhuman punishment' which contravenes section 17 (1) of the Jamaican constitution.
Watson was convicted in the Hanover Circuit Court on July 19, 1999, of the murder of two persons, Eugenie Samuels (his common-law wife), and Georgina Watson (the daughter of Lambert Watson and Eugenie Samuels). Both
murder victims died from stab wounds to the neck and body.
Yesterday, in piloting the Bill entitled, An Act to Amend the Offences Against the Person Act, National Security Minister Dr. Peter Phillips, said the amendments were urgently made so as to "not to have the wheels of justice grind to a halt."
ELIGIBLE FOR PAROLE
The Act also seeks to impose upon the court a duty to specify a period of imprisonment which the offender should serve before becoming eligible for parole; for the court to hear submissions,
representations, and evidence relevant to the issue of the
sentence to be passed; as well as providing for the review of cases in which the death
sentence has been pronounced, with a view to the court
making a determination as to the appropriate sentence.
In his response, Delroy Chuck, opposition spokesman on justice, welcomed the piloting of the Bill, and urged that measures should
be speedily implemented to commute the sentences of death row convicts.
