BARBADOS. CARIBBEAN COURT REVIEWS HANGING
the Caribbean's final appeals court is being asked to overturn a key ruling by the UK's Privy Council and allow the death penalty to be carried out.
the Caribbean's final appeals court is being asked to overturn a key ruling by the UK's Privy Council and allow the death penalty to be carried out.
The Barbados government wants to be allowed to hang two men, Lennox Boyce and Jeffrey Joseph, who were convicted of beating another man, 22-year-old Marquelle Hippolyte, to death in 1999.
They are asking the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) to overrule a landmark ruling by the Privy Council in London in 1993 that stated that keeping someone on death row for more than five years was cruel and inhumane. The CCJ was set up in 2005, replacing the Privy Council as the appeal court for most of nations in the Caribbean.
Since then, defense lawyers have often managed to get death sentences reduced to life in prison by pursuing an appeals process that goes beyond the five-year limit.
The hearing is being described as the first real test of the Trinidad-based CCJ.
The last execution in the region was in the Bahamas in 2000.
The Barbados government wants to be allowed to hang two men, Lennox Boyce and Jeffrey Joseph, who were convicted of beating another man, 22-year-old Marquelle Hippolyte, to death in 1999.
They are asking the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) to overrule a landmark ruling by the Privy Council in London in 1993 that stated that keeping someone on death row for more than five years was cruel and inhumane. The CCJ was set up in 2005, replacing the Privy Council as the appeal court for most of nations in the Caribbean.
Since then, defense lawyers have often managed to get death sentences reduced to life in prison by pursuing an appeals process that goes beyond the five-year limit.
The hearing is being described as the first real test of the Trinidad-based CCJ.
The last execution in the region was in the Bahamas in 2000.
— SOURCES
- (Sources: BBC NEWS, 20/06/2006)