Attorney General Carl Bethel revealed yesterday that the government is considering enacting constitutional changes to preserve capital punishment as an effective penalty under the law, a move that might require a referendum.
Bethel’s revelation came one day after Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis reiterated his support for resumption of hangings.
On Sunday, Minnis said “I am bound by the laws; but I am a strong advocate of hanging,” he said.
The prime minister noted that Cabinet will discuss whether a referendum would be necessary.
The last hanging in The Bahamas was carried out in January 2000.
Bethel said the issue will be dealt with via constitutional reform.
“Several decisions of the Privy Council have of late rendered the penalty to be essentially ineffective in The Bahamas, impractical and ineffective,” he said.
The Privy Council, the country’s final court of appeal, ruled that the death penalty should be reserved for the worst of the worst.
This was established in the 2011 case of Maxi Tido, who had been sentenced to death for the 2002 murder of 16-year-old Donnell Conover, whose skull was crushed and whose body was burnt.
But Bethel said the resumption of hangings would not be automatic, even if the law is changed.“There is nothing that will guarantee that because it still depends upon judicial process and determinations made by the appropriate judge of those determinations,” he said.
