The Tribune

SPEAKING at the opening of the Legal Year for 2016 yesterday, Chief Justice Sir Hartman Longley made it clear that the death penalty for “The Bahamas is virtually dead”.

He was speaking to a people, the majority of whom believe that the only deterrent to murder is hanging. “Hang ’em high” was always the cry. Many Bahamians still believe that because hanging has been suspended, the criminal has nothing to make him think twice about pulling the trigger of a gun — or even of owning such a lethal weapon. “What’s a few years in jail!” they boast. For many prison is the only place where they can get three square meals a day.

Many stories are told about the late Joe Mounts, who often appeared before the late Chief Justice Sir Oswald Bancroft during the years when we were a young court reporter. Joe was Sir Oswald’s favourite prisoner who when he was not serving time would trim the hedges in Sir Oswald’s garden. But Joe was happy in prison. He felt secure there. When he had served his time he would come out to see how Nassau was doing, but after a few weeks he was back before Sir Oswald. “What’s it this time, Joe?” Sir Oswald would ask, looking over his spectacles with a benevolent smile on his face. “Well, suh,” Joe would reply, “it’s time to go back.”

Joe was the only bright spot on what was considered in those days a heavy court calendar. He stretched his legs in the freedom of Nassau for a few weeks, but he needed the security of the prison walls. When the urge for “home” hit him, he would commit a minor misdemeanour. Soon he was back before Sir Oswald.

The last time we reported one of Joe’s “misdemeanours” he made one request of his Lordship before returning to prison. He wanted to know if Sir Oswald would oblige him with a bicycle so he could have a daily ride around the compound. In public the request was denied. But who knows what happened behind the scenes, because Sir Oswald was truly fond of Joe. We all loved Joe. He was the only bright spot on a very drab scene who could get a good laugh out of all of us — even the gruff Sir Oswald.

But today crime is serious. In the days of Joe Mounts, murder was almost unheard of. Last year, The Bahamas made history with 149 murders. As for the shootings – that was off the radar. The murders and shootings have continued into the first few days of this year,

A few days ago, a friend phoned for information. The conversation quickly turned to the frightening state of the country, and, inevitably crime.

He wanted to know what our position was on capital punishment. “We do need a deterrent you know,” he quickly added.

A few years ago, that would have been a difficult question to answer. At that time, we had a father and an uncle on either side of us. The only matter they ever disagreed on was capital punishment. Sir Etienne Dupuch believed in capital punishment. His younger brother, Eugene Dupuch, QC, was eloquent in his objection. We were torn between the two.

Today, forensic science is so advanced — even DNA has been taken to a new level — that it has exposed too many stories of the wrong persons being executed or imprisoned for a crime they did not commit. No, we do not believe in capital punishment, nor do we believe in a breakaway from the Privy Council to make hanging possible. However, we do believe that a deterrent for capital crimes should be so severe that the culprit would probably have preferred to have been put out of his misery.

The late Dean William Granger, former Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, was a great believer in the redemption of a criminal. He was one of the movers behind the prison release programme and sincerely believed that if a person could find the right niche in life he could redeem himself.

It was a few years after we had graduated from Toronto University with philosophy and psychology as our majors that Dean Granger came to The Tribune to discuss his plan with Sir Etienne and ourselves and invite us to participate in his experiment. He said he had three persons in prison who were brilliant, but they had never had an opportunity to develop their native talents. The three men were good writers, he said. He wanted us to take them on a prison release programme to test his convictions that their lives could be turned around.

We were not so hopeful. We left Toronto with the belief that many persons with psychological problems could be helped, but that there were others who were so broken that the only cure would be to send them back to the factory of their Creator for repair. However, we were very interested in testing the Dean’s theory.

The first prisoner arrived. He was most presentable, and very talented. He soon fitted well into our newsroom. However, it did cause some problems with the rest of the reporters when he was never required to go out on night assignments, and had to leave the news room every day at 4.45pm. We were accused of having favourites. Little did they know that if they had looked out of The Tribune’s upstairs window, they could have waved goodbye to their fellow reporter on his way back to detention in the prison bus. He had to be in Bank Lane by 5pm to catch the prison bus back to his cell.

This young man did so well that after he had served his time, we took him on staff as a full time reporter. The staff still did not know his secret. He kept on the straight and narrow path for some time, and then late one Friday night came the dreaded telephone call. At the other end was Mr Reuben Bott of Reuben’s Department Store at the foot of Bay Street.

Mr Bott said that a member of The Tribune staff was in his store. He wanted to buy a small item, but could only pay by cheque. However, he wanted to write a cheque that would not only pay for the item he was purchasing, but would be large enough to give him a sizable amount of change. Was he trustworthy? We advised Mr Bott to get him out of his shop as quickly as possible. Apparently, he had gone up and down Bay Street collecting “change” by cheque because the shopkeepers trusted The Tribune, and after all wasn’t he a Tribune reporter! On Saturday morning two police officers knocked at our news room door, walked over to the reporter’s desk, put handcuffs on him and walked him out to the waiting bus. As far as we recall this was his last time in prison. However, for the rest of his life his dishonesty followed him wherever he went. He is now dead.

The second “reporter” was equally as brilliant, but he didn’t last as long. If ever there was a con man, he was the man.

Sir Etienne was a publisher noted for his charitable work, especially for the Crippled Children’s Committee, which he had founded. One day Sir Etienne got a call from his best friend — the late Sir George Roberts, president of the Senate. Sir George had received a call from someone purporting to be Sir Etienne trying to collect funds for his committee. He knew that this was something that Sir Etienne never did. In fact, he was on Sir Etienne’s committee. Also he knew that Sir Etienne never used a secretary to call anyone - the phone was at his elbow and he dialed the number himself. We quickly discovered that the Dean’s brilliant recruit used his lunch hour, with the help of a lady friend acting as his secretary, to call leading businessmen in the town to solicit funds in Sir Etienne’s name. He too went back to prison, and for many years we reported his constant prison returns, until we lost track of him. As for the third recruit, he didn’t last a week. His anger got him into trouble and we asked that he be taken off our hands.

The Dean was disappointed, but he soldiered on. We still believe that some can be helped, but others have to be left up to their Maker.

We shall return to this subject again.