Murder accused gets three years imprisonment for manslaughter
MURDER accused Keron Lord, 22, yesterday pleaded guilty to the lesser crime of manslaughter and was sentenced to three years imprisonment, for the unlawful killing of fellow Survival Supermarket porter, Magyivaold Pierre, on March 1, 2005.
Justice William Ramlal meted out the sentence following a stirring plea in mitigation by Defence Counsel Basil Williams and an appeal for leniency by the mother of the deceased.
Noting that the victim was the aggressor and the accused was a juvenile when the former was fatally stabbed, the judge told the prisoner: “You are semi-illiterate. You can hardly sign your name and you do not know wrong from right. Therefore, if I give you a longer sentence, I will be making a criminal out of you.”
“I hope that you will use the time that you are in prison to improve your education so that you can determine right from wrong.
“An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth do not work these days,” Justice Ramlal remarked, before the convict was taken out of the courtroom.
The judge said Pierre had shown more aggression that day, the accused was a juvenile and both of them were using obscene language to describe each other’s mother.
Justice Ramlal observed, too, the killer’s inability to determine right from wrong.
After Lord changed his plea, State Prosecutor Shivani Balcharan said the stabbing followed a quarrel and a fight.
She said, after they were parted, Lord went to his lunch bag and took out knife which he placed in his waist and, later, followed Pierre and inflicted the wounds that caused his death.