The Court of Appeal is not expected to deliver its decision for at least another three months in the first appeal against a death sentence handed down by a Supreme Court judge who exercised discretion in arriving at that punishment.
During brief proceedings Wednesday morning, the court heard that the transcript from the murder trial in the Supreme Court of Maxo Tido for the 2002 murder of Donnell Connover was not made available until one day before the matter was set to commence in the appeals court.
Before adjourning the matter until September 18, Court of Appeal President Dame Joan Sawyer referred to several questions that the court would like to hear arguments from the attorneys on once the hearing begins.
Some of the inquiries related to whether there are grounds, such as the existence of an error of principle or a mistake of fundamental fact, upon which to disturb the sentence, given that the judge had exercised her discretion in arriving at the sentence.
Senior Justice Anita Allen sentenced Tido to death in April following his conviction for the murder of 16-year-old Connover.
That sentence marked the first time in The Bahamas that a judge exercised discretion in sentencing a person convicted of murder, and followed the March 8 ruling of the Privy Council in the appeal of Forrester Bowe and Trono Davis, which held that the mandatory death sentence was unconstitutional in The Bahamas.
Speaking with the Bahama Journal after the proceedings in the Court of Appeal yesterday, attorney for Tido, Dion Smith, said as the appeal involves a capital matter lawyers from both the attorney generalﾒs office and for the defence would require a copy of the transcript from the proceedings in the lower court in order to prepare their respective cases.
Following the Privy Councilﾒs decision in Bowe and Davis, judges in The Bahamas are now required to exercise their discretion in determining the appropriate sentence in respect of each person convicted of murder.
Last month, Chief Justice Sir Burton Hall outlined the procedures that judges are to follow in sentencing persons convicted of murder.
In his practice statement, the chief justice noted that the Privy Councilﾒs decision would affect persons on trial for murder whose cases have not been completed, persons whose trials have been completed and who have appeals pending before the Court of Appeal or Privy Council, and death row inmates.
Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson had previously indicated that the local courts had decided that they would initiate the process of quashing the sentences of affected prisoners and re-sentencing those persons.
By: Darrin Culmer, The Bahama Journal
