Barbados: Felony Murder Rule; Mandatory Sentences
| Published date | 01 August 2005 |
| Date | 01 August 2005 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1350/jcla.2005.69.4.322 |
| Subject Matter | Privy Council |
Privy Council
Barbados: Felony Murder Rule; Mandatory Sentences
Griffith and Others vThe Queen [2004] UKPC 58
The seven defendants had agreed to rob the victim. In the course of
carrying out their plan, the victim received fatal stab wounds. The
defendants were all convicted of murder on the basis of the felony
murder rule, which was part of the law of Barbados at the time. The
three defendants who were over 18 were sentenced to death in ac-
cordance with s. 2 of the Offences against the Person Act 1868, which
provided that that sentence was mandatory for those convicted of
murder. The remaining defendants were sentenced to be detained at Her
Majesty’s pleasure in accordance with s. 14 of the Juvenile Offenders Act
1932.
H
ELD
,
DISMISSING THE APPEALS AGAINST CONVICTION
,that the felony
murder rule was valid within the constitution, as its elements were
sufficiently certain to define the offence of murder to which s. 2 of the
1868 Act referred. The mandatory death sentences were valid, following
Boyce vThe Queen [2004] UKPC 32, [2005] 1 AC 400. However, the
sentences of detention at Her Majesty’s pleasure were unlawful as
determination of the length of the sentence lay with the executive,
which violated both the separation of powers embedded in the constitu-
tion and the principle that determination of the length of a sentence was
a matter for the courts. The Privy Council used its power under s. 4(1) of
the Barbados Independence Order to amend s. 4 of the Juvenile Offend-
ers Act 1932 to require that the length of the sentence should be
determined by the court. The cases of those sentenced under the 1932
Act would be remitted to the High Court of Barbados for resentencing in
the light of the Privy Council’s ruling.
C
OMMENTARY
Under s. 2 of the Offences against the Person Act 1868, ‘any person who
is convicted of murder shall suffer death as a felon’. Following the
decision of the enlarged Privy Council in Boyce v R[2004] UKPC 32,
[2005] 1 AC 400, (2004) 68 JCL 484 that the mandatory death penalty
for murder in Barbados (as re-enacted in s. 2 of the Offences against the
Person Act 1994) was constitutionally valid, it was natural and inevita-
ble that attention would turn to the definition of murder which attracts
that penalty. In common with other jurisdictions in the English-
speaking Caribbean, the law of murder in Barbados is based on the
common law formulation deriving from Coke. However, as in England
before 1957, the law of Barbados, at the time of the killing in this case,
also included the felony murder rule: it was this that formed the basis of
the defendants’ convictions for murder in the present case.
Provisions drafted in the form adopted in s. 2 of the Offences against
the Person Act 1868 and its successor, s. 2 of the Offences against the
322
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