Sinclair calls for death penalty
Published:Friday | November 10, 2023 | 12:10 AMMark Titus/Gleaner Writer
Councillor Charles Sinclair is appealing to the Andrew Holness administration to ignore detractors and increase the pursuit of the harshest penalty for murder.
Speaking at Thursday’s monthly meeting of the St James Municipal Corporation, days after the murder of two young boys returning home from school and a man in a taxi in Salt Spring, the councillors all condemned the killings, but drew party lines on the imposition of another state of emergency in the parish.
“I have said that in Jamaica, probably we need to fix the laws … that it could facilitate the death penalty because I believe that there are some persons who exist in Jamaica that just should not exist,” Sinclair, who is a senator and former Montego Bay mayor, said. “Their actions alone speak volumes that they should be taken out of society.”
He said that the Government’s push to increase the penalty for capital and non-capital murder to a minimum of 50 and 30 years, respectively, is a move in the right direction.
“I urge the executive of this Government to continue those amendments to the legislation,” said Sinclair, who is the councillor for the often-volatile Flankers division.
Social intervention
Seven-year-old Justin Perry and nine-year-old Nihcoliva Smith were travelling in the back of a taxi on their way home when the driver picked up a male passenger, 26-year-old Tevin Hayle, who the cops believe was the attacker’s target.
The gunman fired several shots into the car, hitting Hayle several times. He died on the spot while the boys were pronounced dead at the Cornwall Regional Hospital.
Salt Spring has enjoyed a wealth of social-intervention initiatives from the Government and the private sector, but Sinclair argued that it might not impact everyone.
An attorney-at-law by profession, he also called for those found harbouring fugitives to face a minimum of five years’ imprisonment, up from the maximum six months’ sentence under common law.
“If you buy a sweetie and give a fugitive, you must go to prison,” said a somewhat emotional Sinclair.
The Government imposed a state of emergency in the troubled St James Police Division on Wednesday.
Sinclair rebutted the Opposition’s criticism of the measure, arguing that the parish’s homicide rate was rapidly increasing.
He argued that the state of emergency allows the security forces to react to information without the legal restrictions under normal policing and appealed for residents to give information to the police.