Attorneys for murder convict Max Tido have until October 11 to properly prepare to appeal the sentencing and conviction of their client, who was found guilty earlier this year of the 2002 heinous murder of 16-year-old Donnell Conover.
Court of Appeal President Dame Joan Sawyer made that decision on Monday after Tidoﾒs lead counsel Wayne Munroe requested that the matter be put off.
"The record for the appeal came into my office in August, which is more than enough time for me to get ready for it. In August, I was out of office for two weeks ﾖ one week to attend a business trip, during the other week, I was on vacation," Mr. Munroe explained.
"ﾅI found out last week that it was in and it came in without a copy of our notice of appeal. If it were a small matter in which the issues were light, I would read it up and come to court ready to argue, but in a matter involving murder, the imposition of the death penalty for the first time under the new regime, you just want to be perfectly prepared."
A jury found Tido guilty of brutally murdering Ms. Conover after hearing testimony that revealed how the teenager was lured from her home in the early morning hours of May 2, 2002. Her body was reportedly discovered battered and bruised and her skull crushed.
Evidence also revealed that parts of Ms. Conoverﾒs body had been burnt after her death.
Tido was convicted only days after the Privy Council ruled that the mandatory death sentence in The Bahamas is unconstitutional.
Since that decision, judges of the Supreme Court of The Bahamas now have the responsibility of deciding the appropriate sentence on a conviction of murder, specifically whether to impose the death penalty or a lesser penalty.
Tido was the first murder convict to face the discretionary sentencing in The Bahamas. During her ruling, Supreme Court Justice Anita Allen said she was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the appropriate sentence in this case was death.
But Tidoﾒs attorneys are appealing both the sentencing and conviction.
"We are saying that there were errors in the process of the trial. There were errors in the summing up, so we are appealing the conviction," Mr. Munroe said.
"And if we are unsuccessful in appealing the conviction, then we are saying that the imposition of the death penalty was not won by the right procedure because we take the point that the jury has to say on what basis it found him guilty of murder because if the judge has to take this into consideration that has to be found and then the death sentence should not have been imposed."
By: Macushla N. Pinder, The Bahama Journal
