New Death Penalty Interest in Caribbean

One Caribbean nation, St. Kitts and Nevis, staged its first hanging in a decade on Friday. Another wants to begin executing criminals who use weapons, even if they have not killed anyone. And a South American country in the region is seeking the death penalty for murderous pirates.

A crime wave appears to be prompting public officials in and around the English-speaking Caribbean region to pay new attention to the death penalty. The trend has human-rights advocates concerned. They say better police tactics would do more to deter criminals.

A bell tolled Friday from inside Her Majesty’s Prison on the island of St. Kitts to signal the execution of Charles Elroy Laplace, who was sentenced in 2006 to be hanged for killing his wife.

“We have to be certain that there is a deterrent among our people in taking another man’s life,” Prime Minister Denzil Douglas said, announcing the execution to the National Assembly. The homicide rate in St. Kitts and Nevis, with nearly 40,000 people, increased to 23 this year, from 17 in 2007.

The execution was the first in the region, excluding Cuba, since a convicted killer was hanged in the Bahamas in 2000.

More than 90 prisoners are on death row in the region. Measures to make it easier to carry out a death sentence have been welcomed by populations in and around the Caribbean, where opinion polls show strong support for the penalty.

Antigua and Barbuda has proposed expanding the number of crimes potentially punishable by death to include any that involve weapons and lead to serious injury or death. In Guyana, Parliament has approved legislation to execute those who murder during a pirate attack.

Several countries are exploring changes to their constitutions to work around restrictions imposed by the Privy Council, based in London, the highest court of review for many former British colonies. The court says sentences must be commuted to life in prison if the condemned are not executed within five years of sentencing — a window some consider unreasonably short for resolving appeals.

In Jamaica, which has not executed anyone in 20 years, lawmakers voted last month to affirm the death penalty amid a stubbornly high homicide rate. The Senate is expected to vote on the issue soon. More than 1,240 killings were reported this year on the island.

Source: The New York Times, December 20, 2008