THE Court of Appeal, on Wednesday, affirmed the manslaughter convictions of Hofosuwa Amena Rutherford and reduced her 98-year jail sentence to 30 years for killing her two children with rat poison in 2014.

In 2018, Justice Navindra Singh sentenced Rutherford, after a jury found her guilty of two counts of manslaughter for the March 27, 2014, killing of her two small children at Branch Road, Mahaicony, East Coast Demerara.
For killing four-year-old Hodascia Codogan, Rutherford was initially sentenced to 45 years, while she was ordered to serve 53 years behind bars for killing one-year-old Jabari Codogan.

Dissatisfied with the conviction and sentence, Rutherford moved to the Appeal Court with the aid of her attorney, Dexter Smartt, arguing that the trial was unfair, the judge erred in law, and that the sentence was unduly severe.
The appeal was presided over by Chancellor (ag) of the Judiciary, Yonette Cummings-Edwards, and Justices of Appeal Dawn Gregory and Rishi Persaud.

The Chancellor, delivering the Court’s ruling, declared that there was no real risk of unfairness to Rutherford as a result of the trial judge’s failure to rule on the voluntariness of the caution statements.

Despite being a “condition precedent,” the Chancellor noted that the evidence presented by the prosecution, stripped of the caution statements, was sufficiently cogent, and any properly directed jury would have convicted Rutherford of the crimes.
“We believe that no injustice or real risk of prejudice could have been caused to the appellant by the trial judge’s failure to rule on the question of voluntariness,” the Chancellor said.

Regarding Rutherford’s appeal against her jail sentence, the Court of Appeal determined that the trial Judge’s sentence of 98 years was too excessive.

In the circumstances, the appellate court reduced Rutherford sentence to 30 years for killing her daughter and 30 years for killing her son. The two sentences were ordered to run concurrently, meaning she will have to spend 30 years behind bars, less time served.

This convict must serve 20 years before she is eligible for parole.
The Guyana Chronicle had reported that the two children died on March 27, 2014, moments after Rutherford administered carbon tablets—a pesticide popularly known for killing rats—to them.

She claimed that she thought she had given them cold medication. Rutherford was herself hospitalised for some time after ingesting the tablets.
According to her caution statement, Rutherford told police about having problems and being frustrated while awaiting word on her application for a job as a traffic warden with the Guyana Police Force.