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Archbishop Jason Gordon says Trinidad and Tobago must do everything it can “to remove the death penalty off the books.”
Speaking yesterday on the online programme Archbishop Speaks, Gordon said while many people will pour scorn on the idea and may express concern that the already high murder rate will go up more, “what people are not accepting as a truth is that the high murder rate will not be deterred by the death penalty.”
Gordon said the last time he checked, “about eight years ago, only ten per cent of murders were being detected and ten per cent of the detected murders were being convicted, so that’s one per cent, that is not a deterrent.”
The Archbishop said the “real deterrent is a higher rate of detection and a higher rate of conviction.” He argued that 60 per cent is detected and 60 per cent of the murders detected were convicted, then “we will have a real deterrent to stop people in their tracks and think.”
Gordon is hoping the new Commissioner of Police will pay attention to increasing the detection rate.
The Archbishop later told the T&T Guardian that a meeting with the Attorney General and Government was on his agenda but said he said no time-lines yet. He said there was a Caribbean-wide movement to eliminate the death penalty.
Speaking on the issue during his live programme, Gordon said the Bishops of the Antilles Episcopal Conference (AEC) had done a pastoral on the death penalty “and we have asked all governments to remove the death penalty from the books. We believe human dignity is not annihilated because of anything that anyone does.”
One month ago, the CCJ ruled that Section 11 of the Barbados Constitution, which gives the right to protection of the law, was enforceable. It found that the mandatory death penalty breached that right as it deprived a court of the opportunity to exercise the quintessential judicial function of tailoring the punishment to fit the crime.
Prior to the ruling, if somebody was charged and convicted of murder it had to be a death sentence, but following the ruling “the judge has discretion and that is the first step out,” the Archbishop said.
Gordon said, “What happened in Barbados was wonderful. It is no longer a mandatory sentence. That’s amazing as a first step in taking it off the books.”