ATTORNEY-at-law Mr. Nigel Hughes, defence counsel for convicted murderer Dwayne Jordan, was in court yesterday still fighting for a custodial penalty to be imposed on his client for the murder of his reputed wife, Claudeene Rampersaud, when the mandatory sentence is death by hanging.

Citing cases and decisions before Justice Navindra Singh, Hughes yesterday continued to submit that to impose the mandatory sentence against his client without giving him an opportunity to be heard in relation to how such cases are treated in modern society would be a catastrophe.

Contending that the mandatory sentence was cruel, inhumane and degrading, Hughes asked that his client be given a custodial sentence in lieu of the death penalty.

But Prosecutor Konyo Thompson, refuting Hughes’s submissions, said it was the state’s respectful understanding that Section 100 of the Criminal Law Offences Act, Chapter 8:01 of the Laws of Guyana, provides that: “Everyone who commits murder shall be guilty of felony; and on conviction thereof, shall be liable to suffer death as a felon”. She said the section mandates the penalty to be imposed when a felon is convicted of murder.

“The use of the word ‘shall’ takes away any possibility for a court to institute a lesser penalty for such, until Parliament so provides. ‘Shall’, under the rules of statutory interpretation, is used to create a duty, and is used only when someone is being compelled to do something. It imposes a duty or an obligation to act or not to act,” she said.

Mrs. Thompson explained that Article 138 of the 1980 Constitution of Guyana provides that “no one shall be deprived of his life intentionally, save in the execution of the sentence of a court in respect of an offence under the laws of Guyana, of which he has been convicted.”

The prosecutor disclosed that Section 100 of the Criminal Law (Offences) Act of Guyana, Chapter 8:01, at the time of the appellant’s conviction, provides the sentence of death as the only penalty for a person found guilty of the offence of murder.
Justice Singh advised the prosecution and defence counsels to make all their cited cases available to him, and he promised to deliver his ruling next Monday, December 17.

After a trial that lasted several days, Dwayne Jordon was convicted by a Demerara assizes jury last Friday for the murder of his reputed wife Claudeene Rampersaud.