Death Penalty for Murder in UK Law

The government of Barbados has always accepted that the execution of everyone convicted of murder would be unacceptably harsh and undiscriminating – in fact, cruel and inhuman. But the government argues that the provisions for the application of the death penalty must be considered as a whole and that they include the power of the Governor-General, on the advice of the Barbados Privy Council, to commute the death sentence in any case in which it is thought appropriate to do so.

If their Lordships were called upon to construe section 15(1) of the Constitution, they would be of opinion that it was inconsistent with a mandatory death penalty for murder. The reasoning of the Board in Reyes v The Queen [2002] 2 AC 235, which was in turn heavily influenced by developments in international human rights law and the jurisprudence of a number of other countries, including states in the Caribbean, is applicable and compelling.

Where the jury convict following a direction under section 2A, it can rarely if ever be known whether they have convicted on the basis of constructive malice or not, unless the jury are routinely asked to explain their verdict, a generally undesirable practice.

Until recently, it was rare for a defendant to plead guilty to murder. This may have been a throwback to a time when the penalty for murder was death. In that situation, the legal profession regarded it as inappropriate to allow a defendant to plead guilty.

Initially, the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man (1948) was not viewed as creating legal duties.

Since paragraph 10 introduces these exceptions to the rights and protection which people would otherwise have under the Constitution, it must be construed like any other derogation from constitutional guarantees. In State v Petrus [1985] LRC (Const) 699, 720D-F in the Court of Appeal of Botswana, Aguda JA referred to Corey v Knight (1957) 150 Cal App 2d 671 and observed that

He should then explain to them that the reasonable man referred to in the question is a person having the power of self-control to be expected of an ordinary person of the sex and age of the accused, but in other respects sharing such of the accused's characteristics as they think would affect the gravity of the provocation to him; and that the question is not merely whether such a person would in like circumstances be provoked to lose his self-control but also would react to the provocation as the accused did.