JAMAICA: DEATH PENALTY DENIES DUE PROCESS OF LAW- SENATOR MEADOWS

debate on the death penalty continued in the Jamaican Senate with Government Senator, Dennis Meadows, arguing that capital punishment denies due process of law, as it deprives an individual the benefit of new evidence, or new law, that might warrant the reversal of a conviction or setting aside of a death sentence. "The death penalty violates the constitutional guarantee of the equal protection of the law. It is applied randomly at best and discriminatorily at worst. It is disproportionate upon those who find the cost of a good advocate prohibitive," Senate Meadows stated. He further argued that the death penalty gives society the unmistakeable message that human life no longer deserves respect and obscures the true causes of crime. “We need to remove murderers from society, but we don't have to hang them to remove them from the society," he pointed out.