St. Lucian PM says resumption of hangings is ‘a serious issue’

CASTRIES, St. Lucia, CMC -Prime Minister Phillip J Pierre says the resumption of capital punishment in St. Lucia is something his administration will have to “think of very, very carefully”,  even as a petition is receiving significant support for the government to actively consider the enforcement of capital punishment.

The petition follows the murder last week of a 24-year-old mother, whose bullet-riddled body was found in the driver’s seat of a vehicle. Her estranged husband has since turned himself in to law enforcement authorities.

The last execution in St. Lucia took place on October 17, 1995, when Joseph Solomon, a convicted murderer,  was hanged. Since that time, the country has maintained a de facto moratorium on the death penalty. There are three people on death row so far this year.

“That is a serious, serious issue in the country. Every day, someone tells me, bring back hanging every day. It’s complex, it has become an international issue, and there are countries who suffer reprisals if they introduce again,” Prime Minister Pierre told the post-Cabinet news conference.

“So it is, it’s a matter that we have to think of very, very carefully. I will not venture to give an opinion on it now,” Pierre said, noting that, for example, the Roman Catholic Church opposes capital punishment.

“You’re aware of that, right? So it’s a very complex issue. It’s not an issue that we can just proclaim on. At this point, I’m not willing to see, nor am I in a position to see, whether we will bring back hanging or not.

“But I can tell you, many people, many, many people in the country are asking for the return of hanging, of capital punishment. Many, many people.  People are saying you can move from hanging to the lethal injection,”  Pierre said, reiterating, “I will not venture an opinion at this time”.

Pierre said all governments in St. Lucia have had to deal with the crime situation, especially murders and recalls a “maxim in law,” which he said states “it’s better a million men go free than one innocent man gets punished.

“It’s a very hard situation because you know again, you must look at our history,” Pierre said, noting the emotional nature of the debate on capital punishment as response to the crime situation.

“We come from a history where people were just accused of doing things that they never did. People were lynched for committing a crime,”  he said, insisting that his  administration has provided financial and other assistance to the police.

“Our history is that there must be independence of the judiciary. There must be no matter how painful it is. And I know it’s painful …it’s painful. It hurts. It hurts me  But we have to understand there must be independence of the judiciary,”  he said, noting that the government has spent million of dollars (One EC dollar=US$0.37  cents) on providing buildings for  the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court of Justice.

Pierre defended the work of the police and their intelligence operations, telling reporters “you would appreciate that I can’t come in public and say to the public of St. Lucia that we have intelligence….

“How can I come to the public and say to them how much intelligence we have? So what’s the use of intelligence? And let’s be realistic. I hear some people, for their own political reasons, throwing that around the place.”

Pierre said that for much of the crime in this country, “if it wasn’t for intelligence, it would have been worse.

“It would have been worse if the intelligence didn’t exist. And I want to congratulate the police for the way they use that intelligence, but they cannot go out and tell you what they’re doing,”  he  said, adding “the people who ask that have been unrealistic, and they’ve been political.

“All I can tell you that in the most of the crime in St. Lucia, most of the crime in St. Lucia, that is solved,  there is some level of intelligence driven in, most of it. I can say that for now, most of it.

“We see the cameras, they are in the country. There are CCTV cameras in the country. There can be more, there will be more, but I will not tell you where they are. I can’t, apart from what you can see.