Privy Council spares death row inmate

There’s one less person on death row tonight. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council today upheld the appeal of Pascual Bull against his 1994 murder conviction and subsequent mandatory sentence of death by hanging. According to the oral judgement, the murder conviction and sentence was overturned and replaced with a charge of manslaughter. Simeon Sampson, the lawyer representing Bull, says the case has been sent back to the Belize Court of Appeal for it to pass judgement at its next sitting, scheduled for May of this year. Pascual Bull was convicted for the 1993 double murder of Juan Natividad Cruz Turcios and Hipolito Cowo on a farm at mile twenty one on the Western Highway. Viewers may recall that Bull came within twenty minutes of being hanged on August 25, 1995 when Sampson showed up at the old prison’s compound in Belize City with an eleventh hour stay of execution from the Privy Council.