“I am an advocate of hanging and it’s a pity that it’s [not being carried out],” Mr. Farquharson told The Bahama Journal.
“The last person who was [hanged] in The Bahamas was in January of 2000 and I think that’s far too long. I only wish that we could re-institute it. That’s my position. They have been sentenced to death and as far as I’m concerned, the law should be carried out. Now all the gaps that prevent that from happening rests with some other agencies.”
The last convict to be hanged was David Mitchell, who met his fate at the gallows on January 6, 2000.
Mr. Farquharson said he believes that hangings do serve as a deterrent. So far this year, there have been 45 homicides, with most of them occurring in New Providence.
“Anyone who takes a life, they should be prepared that their life should go as well,” the police commissioner said. “As long as there’s a fair trial and the evidence is there and the person is lawfully convicted and lawfully sentenced, I think the law should be carried out.”
Asked whether he thought hangings were inhumane, Mr. Farquharson said, “That’s what some people say, but my position is that I am very [much] in favour of hanging, very much in favour, but if the lawmakers decide that they would remove it, then we as a force would have to abide by that.”
He noted that hangings are still on the books, but due to certain legal maneuvers the death penalty is on hold.
“Legal ramifications around the whole question of hanging seem to indicate that eventually it might be abolished in The Bahamas,” Mr. Farquharson said.
But he said this would be a bad idea.
“There are many persons on death row who should have been gone a long time ago,” the police commissioner added.
A prison official confirmed yesterday that there are 28 men under the sentence of death at Her Majesty’s Prison.
A Journal investigation earlier this year determined that half of all the men under the sentence of death at Her Majesty’s Prison are unlikely to be hanged given that they have been lingering on death row for more than five years without authorities issuing any death warrants.
The Privy Council has set a standard that a person serving beyond this point without being executed should not be executed.
Of the 28 death row inmates at the time of the study, 14 of them had been there since 1998 or earlier.
Government officials, meanwhile, have been quiet on the highly controversial issue as they await the outcome of a Privy Council case involving two men under the sentence of death at Her Majesty’s Prison.
Forrester Bowe Jr. and Trono Davis had asked the court to hear their petition challenging the constitutionality of the mandatory death sentence, but the Lords of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London determined that they will not hear the question of the mandatory death sentence given that they have already addressed the question in a ruling last July.
In the Boyce and Joseph matter out of Barbados, the high court determined that the mandatory death sentence could not be considered unconstitutional given that it was an existing law at the time the constitution came into force.
The Bahamian constitution, like that of Barbados, contains what is known as a savings clause, which ensures that existing laws cannot be considered unconstitutional.
In the Bowe and Davis matter, the Lords said, however, that they would settle the question of whether the Court of Appeal had jurisdiction to hear the convicts’ appeal against the mandatory death sentence.
In their petition, Bowe and Davis had charged that the Court of Appeal erred when it determined in April 2003 that it had no jurisdiction to hear the appeal.
In The Bahamas, convicted murderers are automatically sentenced to death regardless of the circumstances surrounding the murder, but the condemned men had argued that this is unconstitutional.
The case is set to be heard in December.
Attorney General Alfred Sears has said that this case must first be concluded before authorities could revisit the question of the death penalty in The Bahamas.
In an earlier interview with The Bahama Journal, Mr. Sears noted that the Bowe and Davis case, “impacts directly on the status of the men who are currently on death row and therefore, out of respect for the rule of law, we have rendered the advice that we wait until the matter is determined in court so that we will have the proper directions when we proceed.”
The Bahamas has hanged 50 men since 1929, according to prison records. Five of them were hanged under the Ingraham administration; 13 were hanged under the 25-year rule of the Pindling government; and the remainder was executed between 1929 and 1967. None was hanged, as indicated, under the Christie Administration.
By: Candia Dames, The Bahama Journal
