BAHAMAS: GOVERNMENT PLANS LEGISLATION TO STRENGTHEN DEATH SENTENCES

the Government in the Bahamas plans to introduce capital punishment legislation which will strengthen death sentence cases from being overturned on appeal by the Privy Council, Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham said. The new legislation will specify which categories of crimes warrant capital punishment and he plans to bring the law to Parliament for debate before the summer recess.
The proposed legislation will be crafted around recent recommendations made by the Privy Council after it quashed the death sentence of Maxo Tido, who was found guilty of the 2002 murder of 16-year-old Donnover Conover, Mr Ingraham said.
"They set out in their judgment a number of circumstances which, they say, can result in the death penalty being imposed.
"For instance, somebody being killed during the course of an armed robbery or being killed during the course of a rape or drug trafficking. There are a number of other things that they said," said Mr Ingraham.
"For instance a policeman being killed in the line of duty would be something that we would regard as fitting for the death penalty being imposed. So we're going to seek to categorise all of those and put us in a better position to have it upheld by the Privy Council," Mr Ingraham added.