[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 28



TRINIDAD & TOBAGO:

Lawyers fight for convicted killers


Lawyers for 8 convicted killers, 3 of whom murdered their wives, have
filed legal action to get them out of jail before they die.

The convicts have spent from 19 to 28 years in prison for the crimes they
committed.

The youngest prisoner is 53 years old. The oldest among the eight might
also be the most educated in prison-Godson Neptune, former university
lecturer and deputy executive director of the Employers' Consultative
Association.

Neptune will be 80 next January.

He is the oldest man serving life in jail.

Another wife killer Ramcharan Bikaroo, was released last month at the age
of 72 after serving 32 years in jail.

In May 1985, Neptune chopped to death Myra Neptune at their Westmoorings
home and was convicted for the murder 2 years later.

Attorneys Jagdeo Singh and Alvin Ramroop last week filed constitutional
motions on behalf of the 8.

As in the Bikaroo case, the lawyers are arguing that the sentence of
imprisonment for the rest of a prisoner's natural life is not a sentence
known in law.

In the famous Jamaican case of Pratt and Morgan, the Privy Council in 1993
ruled it would be cruel and inhumane to execute a prisoner who had spent
more than 5 years awaiting the hangman.

As a result, prisoners on Death Row for more than five years, were brought
to Prison Commissioner's office and an order read to them by then
Registrar of the Supreme Court, Sherman Mc Nicolls-that their death
sentences were commuted and they were to serve a term of imprisonment for
the rest of their natural lives.

Among the convicts filing suits are Victor Baptiste, who was convicted two
years after killing his wife Patricia Marcus in 1979, and Felix Dean, who
received the death sentence in 1987 for the murder of his wife Majorie
Singh 5 years earlier.

The lawyers are also trying to open the prison gates for 64-year-old
Oliver Forde, who killed a man in 1979, and who has replaced Bikaroo as
the longest serving prisoner.

Also wanting out are Lall Seeratan who killed Motie Ramoutar in 1982,
Ramesh Maharaj and Balkissoon Soogrim, who were jointly convicted for
murder in 1980 and Tobagonian Stephen Hyman, who was locked away in May
1988 for the killing of Pearl Dialsingh.

(source: Trinidad Express)