Video: Attorney-General On Sentencing Laws

The Criminal Codes Amendment passed in the House of Assembly on Friday night [Mar 21], with MPs from both sides of the aisle supporting the Bill, which changes the laws for sentencing convicted murderers and gang members.

The changes follow a ruling from the Privy Council in London last year [PDF], which stated that Bermuda laws do not allow for a minimum sentence over 25 years for premeditated murder and 15 years for murder, resulting in four convicted murderers having their sentences reduced.

Antonio Myers sentence [murder of Kumi Harford] was reduced by 23 years, David Cox’s sentence [murder of Troy “Yankee” Rawlins] was reduced by 13 years, Ze Selassie’s [murder of Rhiana Moore] was reduced by 10 years, while Jermaine Pearman’s sentence [murder of Shakeya DeRoza] was reduced by 10 years.

Attorney-General Mark Pettingill provided an overview of the changes, explaining that they have taken away the concept of premeditated murder, and it all comes under the head of murder now, which allows the length of incarceration to be determined by the judge.  He referenced the Privy Council’s decision and said “we remedied that” so that it won’t happen again.

Mr. Pettingill said, “The Criminal Codes Amendment we are dealing with are two main areas. One, we are addressing the sentencing provisions as they relate to murder, and what was premeditated murder. We have taken away the concept of premeditated murder. It all comes under the head of murder now.

“What it basically allows us to do is, that any offence of murder carries a life sentence, but then the length of time to be served before one is eligible for parole is in the hands of the judge.

“It becomes a judge’s discretion. If it’s a really, really bad crime with a premeditation, somebody loads up with a gun and goes after a particular person and there is full planning for it, that would be a really, really serious, serious type of offence at the top end of the scale, and the judge may be able to say they wouldn’t be eligible for parole before 28 years or something like that.

Mr. Pettingill continued, “If it was the type of crime as I illustrated in the House, where you had a husband who was on life support system, and his wife knew he wanted to die, and the machine was going on, then she went in and turned it off, that would be premeditated, but a very, very different crime, despite the fact that it was premeditated.

“That would come under the umbrella for murder, but for that type of case, a judge might say, he’d pass a mandatory sentence and he would say you were eligible within six months, of any time like that to allow for the nature of the crime.

“And that was fixing basically something that happened last year, in relation to the Privy Council decision as it related to their ruling in regards to our sentencing policies that we had in place under the old law, as it related to murder offences.

“There was a lot of public concern, and in fact we were concerned, I was very concerned because the Privy Council in effect lowered those sentences. They were sentences I think that people felt were just. We remedied that, so that that wouldn’t happen again,” added the Attorney-General.

“The other one is a provision of when people are convicted of a serious offense and it is proven they are involved in a gang, then we address those tariffs so they can receive an additional sentence for the fact that it was a gang-related offense.

“For instance, if it was a robbery with violence then they may get a five year sentence, or six year sentence. They can have an additional sentence in relation to the fact that he did it whilst a member of a gang, or doing it related to gang activity.

“It’s really addressing if you are committing an offence whilst you are in a gang, or as part of a gang activity, you are going to get an extra punishment for that.”

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