By Tahna Weston
[email protected]
Former Antigua and Barbuda prosecutor Adlai Smith is urging Prime Minister Gaston Browne and OECS leaders to jointly engage the Sentencing Council over sentencing guidelines.
Smith, who is now Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in St Kitts and Nevis, said concerns about sentences should be addressed through the body responsible for drafting the guidelines. His suggestion comes as Browne is calling for stricter sentences, especially for serious crimes involving firearms.
“Because judges, they follow rules, they follow guidelines. They can’t just decide, well, they’re not following the guidelines simply because a politician or public uproar is there. There’s a principle to it. So, the strategic approach to this, you have to go and deal with the source of it which is the Sentencing Council, which drafts these guidelines.
“And I said, the strategy has got to be the prime minister in conjunction with his regional counterparts in the OECS have to come and say together we have a problem with the sentences that have been passed,” Smith said.
He used St Kitts and Nevis as an example, saying firearm possession can carry a maximum sentence of 30 years, while the sentencing guidelines can result in substantial reductions.
Smith said further reductions can apply when a person pleads guilty and where there are other mitigating factors, including previous good conduct.
“You take for example St Kitts and Nevis. Our gun laws, your regular firearm possession can carry up to a maximum of 30 years. But the broad majority of cases fall within a class whereby, based on the sentencing guidelines, the starting point is about 50 percent of the whole sentence (and) 50 percent of 30 is 15.
“And if a person is pleading guilty which is often the case, you give up to one-third discount. That takes it down to 10 and then you take off more mitigating factors as the case may be,” the DPP said.
He recalled a firearm case he handled in the High Court in which a defendant ultimately received a minimal sentence after the applicable discounts.
“Because I remember the very first case that we dealt with in the High Court that I brought before the court for a firearm offense with a maximum penalty of 30 years. After all the discounts, the person was sent to prison for six years. That’s quite a heavy discount. And that’s where the maximum is 30,” Smith added.
The former prosecutor said the difference between the maximum penalty and the final sentence illustrates the effect sentencing guidelines can have.
“But if we are starting at 30 and we end up at six, then naturally, if you start at 15 then you might end up with two or three – lenient sentences based on the application of the sentencing guidelines. So, I say there has to be a strategic approach with respect to engaging the Sentencing Council,” he noted.
Smith also said a member of the Sentencing Council who works as a prosecutor in his office is willing “to guide whoever wants to make an application to that particular august body in order to effect meaningful change.”
