Lawyer says murder convict should get reduced time in resentencing

Former condemned prisoner Dwayne Omar Severin remains housed on death row at Dodds Prison despite a Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) ruling six years ago that the mandatory death sentence in Barbados is unconstitutional.

And because of that fact, said Severin’s attorney Angella Mitchell-Gittens, he should get a significant discount in his resentencing.

Severin, formerly of Crane, St Philip, had originally been sentenced to hang after he was found guilty of the November 30, 2009 killing of Virgil Barton.

Delivering sentencing submissions before Justice Randall Worrell in the No. 2 Supreme Court on Thursday, Mitchell-Gittens said: “He remains on death row up to today. Even though our apex court has indicated that these men are to be resentenced and that they are no longer death row inmates, the prison, Sir, has sought to keep these men locked up in a situation where they are characterised as death row inmates.”

“It is my submission that there must be some significant deduction for keeping Mr Severin on death row for six years, especially for the period where a court has ruled that he ought not to be on death row. He is on death row even today when he comes down to be sentenced and he is going back to the prison to be on death row. I suspect that is where he will remain until he is sentenced . . . despite the court having ruled that this is a man who is just like anybody else awaiting sentence.

“The death penalty is off the table. Certainly, that is cruel and inhumane punishment that is inexplicably linked to being present on death row [and] must be awarded [with] some significant discount given those conditions,” the lawyer submitted.

Pointing to the mitigating and aggravating features of her client’s offence, Mitchell-Gittens said the attack was carried out in front of Barton’s residence where he was liming with others, and the family of the deceased was present and would [have] been traumatised by the events that unfolded that day.

Also aggravating, she said, was the fact that a firearm was used to carry out the killing and the offence was carried out in a public place even though it was at the home of the deceased.

“The evidence is that the assailants came along the main road and it was right there in the public where any member of the public could have been injured by what transpired,” the attorney said.

Mitchell-Gittens acknowledged that based on what was presented by the state, the attack seemed “to have been not totally unprovoked”.

“It would appear that something transpired earlier in the day at St Philip Carnival and this would have been a spill [off] of that. I urge the court to consider that there seems to be an absence of significant planning or premeditation. It appears one thing happened and then shortly thereafter, these men are seen coming down the road and shooting,” the lawyer said.

The re-sentencing phase of Severin’s case continues on June 6 when Principal State Counsel Krystal Delaney will put forward the prosecution’s submissions on sentencing.