PENALTY

gang- and drug-related killings, killing in the course of a robbery or
other crime, killing in the course of a domestic dispute (where the
parties are related), killing in the course of an altercation not involving
a domestic setting, and those with an unknown motive, also called
“body dumped” by the police. Of the 208 killings that were classified
as gang- or drug-related or involving body-dumping—just under a
third of the total—there were only two convictions for murder and
another two for manslaughter by the end of 2005. In contrast, killings
in the course of domestic violence, which represented 17 per cent
of recorded homicides, accounted for 52 per cent of the murders
solved. Thus, the proportion of murders that the police recorded as
solved was lowest for the category that has been increasing the most:
gang- and drug-related murders, and particularly those where the
victim’s body was dumped. Clear-up rates were most successful for
the crimes least likely to be the subject of a carefully planned act.
Review of the trials of all people charged with murder over the same
five-year period revealed that, for the tiny proportion who were convicted
of murder, only 8 per cent of their convictions stood after
appeal. The low conviction rate was most pronounced in gang- and
drug-related cases. Convictions were more likely to be for manslaughter
than for murder.
Caribbean, where all available studies indicate that it is both infrequently
and arbitrarily applied. The study summarized above likened
the possibility of receiving the death penalty in Trinidad and Tobago
to that of being struck by lightning. 67 This underlines the vagaries and
weaknesses of the criminal justice system and its profound unfairness
in capital cases.
CONCLUSION
Across much of the Commonwealth Caribbean, the bulk of killings
go unsolved, the majority of convictions are overturned on appeal,
the administration of justice is slow, and low-income suspects face
severe barriers to their ability to present an effective defence. There
is strong evidence that the death penalty disproportionately affects
the weak, poor and vulnerable. Caribbean states need to strengthen
their criminal justice systems at both the investigative and trial levels;
retaining the death penalty is unlikely to help them address their
rising crime rates.
Thus, the death penalty is infrequently applied in Trinidad and
Tobago. Paradoxically, the type of murder that is least likely to be
planned in advance and most likely to be committed in the heat of
emotion, without consideration of the threat of later punishment, is
the type most likely to end up with a conviction for murder. Even
in this category, as much as 60 per cent of killings do not result in
a murder conviction. Studies in other parts of the Caribbean also
indicate a low percentage of murder convictions. In the Bahamas,
for instance, while 333 murders were recorded between 2005 and
2009, only 10 cases resulted in murder convictions. 65
International law calls for the death penalty, if it is retained, to be
used only in the worst cases. 66 But this is certainly not the case in the
65 Amnesty International, Caribbean: Death Penalty in the English-Speaking Caribbean, p. 27.
66 The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 6(2), states: “In countries
which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only for the
most serious crimes.”
67 Hood and Seemungal, A Rare and Arbitrary Fate, paragraph 98.
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