DPP upset over Privy Council’s ruling

No one may ever pay the ultimate price for committing a murder in St. Vincent and the Grenadines once the Privy Council remains this country’s highest Court of Appeal.{{more}}

This is the view expressed by Director of Public Prosecutions Colin Williams, following the Privy Council’s ruling on Monday, June 22nd, to commute the death sentence imposed on Daniel ‘Compay’ Dick Trimmingham to life imprisonment.

The Law Lords of the Privy Council in their judgment found that Trimmingham’s crime of beheading and burying Albert ‘Bertie’ Browne in the Carriere Mountains on January 8, 2003, was not the “worst of the worst, such as to call for the ultimate penalty of capital punishment.”

The Council further said that the objective of keeping Trimmingham out of society entirely “can be achieved without executing him.”

Williams, however, told SEARCHLIGHT that this finding is confusing, given that Trimmingham’s defense team, while arguing during the trial that he did not commit the crime, regarded it as a “heinous act.”

The DPP said that he was somewhat prepared for the Privy Council’s judgment, though, based on the briefing he received from the solicitors who represented the State at the Privy Council’s hearing.

He said that based on the questions that were being asked, they had an idea where the judgment was leaning.

“The Privy Council does not have the sensitivity and sensibility of the people of the British West Indies,” Williams said.

“Their epistemological foundation is in abolition,” the DPP added, saying that it seems apparent that no matter what the crime, they will be set on avoiding the imposition of the death penalty.

Trimmingham was first sentenced to death for the gruesome murder on November 17, 2003, and then on June 22, 2004, the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal ordered that he be retried.

He was again convicted and sentenced to death in December of 2004, and this time, in October of 2005, the judgment was upheld by the Court of Appeal.

His appeal before the Privy Council was heard on March 16th and 17th this year.

Trimmingham’s attorney, Kay Bacchus Browne, told another weekly publication that she was pleased with the Privy Council’s ruling and noted her opposition to the death penalty.

Williams, however, told SEARCHLIGHT that in the new draft constitution on which a referendum will be held in November, provision is made to dictate how the death penalty is to be imposed.

He said that the new constitution can be used as a starting block to “let the legislature redirect for the Judiciary what is considered to be appropriate.”(KJ)