Supreme Court affirms legality of death penalty

A landmark decision in the Supreme Court today advanced government’s strong support for the death penalty and sent two death row prisoners one step closer to the hangman’s noose. Justice George Meerabux dismissed a motion by convicted murderers Herman Mejia and Nicholas Guevara who were trying to have their sentences overturned on a Constitutional Motion. The men cited as grounds for dismissing the death sentence that to hang them amounted to cruel and inhuman punishment. The presiding judge, however, was not convinced. In passing judgement, Justice Meerabux said that the death penalty is sanctioned by the Belize Constitution and therefore cannot be called cruel or degrading. Furthermore he stated hanging was the time honored method of carrying out the death sentence which had its roots in the Common Law of England and which has been incorporated into the laws of several Commonwealth countries including Belize. Therefore, the judge said, to hang Mejia and Guevara in accordance with the sentences of death imposed upon them by the Supreme Court, would not infringe their constitutional rights. Mejia and Guevara’s attorney Kirk Anderson also argued on their behalf that conditions at the Hattieville Prison where the condemned men are being kept constitute inhuman and degrading treatment and that after keeping them there for a prolonged period would again be in contravention of the constitution. This argument was also rejected by Justice Meerabux who said that he had himself visited the Hattieville Prison and found conditions there to be reasonable and acceptable by Belize standards. The judge went on to say that prison conditions in small Caribbean countries could not be compared to those in England or other advanced countries. This was the first time that the Supreme Court has passed judgement on the constitutionality of the death penalty.