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: JURIST - The Paper Chase

Jamaica parliament votes to resume death penalty after 20-year moratorium

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

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[JURIST] The Jamaican parliament on Tuesday voted 34-15, with 10 abstentions, to resume the use of the death penalty. Advocates for the measure cited the country's extremely high murder rate as justification for resuming executions. Opponents of the practice, including Jamaicans for Justice executive director Carolyn Gomes, have argued that the country should increase efforts to arrest and charge criminals rather than reinstate capital punishment. Before executions, which are carried out by hanging, can resume, the Jamaican senate must also approve the measure. Jamaica's Offenses Against the Person Act already provides for the death penalty, but the country has had an effective moratorium on the punishment since 1988. In 1993 the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, still the former British colony's highest court of appeal, ruled that holding a person awaiting execution for more than five years constitutes "cruel and unusual" punishment in violation of the Jamaican constitution, but did not outlaw the penalty itself.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on November 26, 2008 (boomark / email).