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Justice Kevin Ramcharan. –

A HIGH Court judge has struck out two standing orders of the police service which deal with how long officers can keep their pocket diaries and station diaries.

In a ruling on Thursday, Justice Kevin Ramcharan declared that standing orders 16.13 and 17.11 were unreasonable as they allowed for the destruction of relevant records and material before the expiration of all limitation periods in court proceedings, as prescribed under the Limitation of Certain Actions Act.

The judge e-mailed his decision to attorneys and will provide his reasons at a later date.

Ramcharan was asked to determine a judicial review and constitutional claim filed by a Gasparillo man, Keron Phillip, whose car was impounded in Woodbrook in 2014. Phillip was charged for obstructing an officer and using insulting language after he asked why his car had been impounded.

In 2017, the charges against him were dismissed. In order to pursue a claim for malicious prosecution, Phillip’s attorneys sent a freedom of information request in April 2020 for copies of station diary extracts and pocket diaries, among other documents relating to his arrest.

In June, Phillip was told the requests had been denied because the extracts from the various registers were destroyed in keeping with the provisions of the standing orders.

The two standing orders which were challenged set out what should be done with pocket diaries after the prosecution of a criminal complaint ends and how long a station diary could be kept.

In his constitutional claim, Phillip’s attorneys Anand Ramlogan, SC, Renuka Rambhajan, Dr Che Dindial, and Jared Jagroo, argued that the standing orders conflicted with the limitation period of four years set out in law to bring a civil claim.

In response to Phillip’s claim, ACP William Nurse, who is head of the police service standing order committee since 2018, said the two contentious standing orders were among those scheduled for review and redraft. He said the committee’s mandate was to look at the standing orders to ensure they conform with the duties and requirements of police officers.

Nurse said although the covid19 pandemic had affected the work of the committee, when it does meet, the draft of the two standing orders will give consideration to not permitting the destruction of pocket and station diaries.

In his affidavit in response, Supt Glen Charles of the Port of Spain city police said there was a severe storage challenge at its storage container at Abbatoir Road and they took guidance from the police’s standing orders to allow for the creation of space by destroying books, registers, diaries and other documents no longer required for any investigation or court matter.

The Commissioner and Attorney General were represented by attorneys Michael Quamina, Tenille Ramkissoon, Vincent Jardine, and Tiffany Kissoon.

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Police are investigating a shooting at Babonneau in the early hours of Friday that left a man and a woman with gunshot injuries.

Law enforcement officials said they received the shooting report around 2:00 am.

According to information, the woman and the man both sustained gunshot injuries to the hand.

Law enforcement sources told St Lucia Times that their injuries, which did not appear life-threatening, were treated at the hospital, which discharged the patients.

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There are no further details at this time.

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Whether South Carolina can start executing prisoners again either with a firing squad or electric chair is now in the hands of a judge after a trial over whether shooting or electrocuting inmates is cruel and unusual punishment banned by the US Constitution.

Lawyers for four death row inmates argued this week the prisoners would feel terrible pain whether their bodies were “cooking” by electricity or heart stopped by marksman’s bullet — assuming they are on target.

Attorneys for the state countered with their own experts who said death by the yet-to-be-used firing squad or the rarely-used-this-century electric chair would be instantaneous and the condemned would not feeling any pain.

The state Supreme Court ordered Judge Jocelyn Newman to rule within 30 days, but it almost certainly won’t be the end of the case. Whichever side loses is expected to appeal. From 1995 to 2011 – when the state’s last execution was performed – South Carolina carried out the death penalty on 36 prisoners with lethal injections. But the state’s supply of lethal injection drugs expired in 2013, and pharmaceutical companies have refused to sell more for executions.

Prison officials asked lawmakers for help and in 2021 they made the state’s electric chair, built in 1912, the default method for executions and let prisoners choose a new firing squad if they wish.

During this week’s trial, a Corrections Department official said he devised the firing squad protocols after consulting a prison official in Utah, location of the only three inmates to die by firing squad since 1977. Colie Rushton, the department’s security director, testified the .308 Winchester ammunition to be used is designed to fragment and split up in the heart to make death happen as fast as possible, according to media reports from the trial.

Much of the rest of the trial was each side calling its own experts to detail whether inmates feel any pain before they die.

The human brain remains conscious at least 15 seconds after a person’s heart stops beating, said Dr. Jonathan Arden, who formerly led the Washington D.C. Medical Examiner’s office. Arden, testifying on behalf of the inmates said it appeared at least 10 per cent of prisoners in cases he reviewed remained conscious after the first shock of an electrocution.

“Forgive me for saying it so plain,” Arden testified about the electric chair, “but you get the effects on parts on the body, including internal organs, that is the equivalent of cooking.”

Experts for the state testified the shock delivered by the electric chair is so great and the use of ammunition that shatters when it hits bone creating a number of fragments to destroy the heart means almost immediate loss of consciousness and no pain, retired forensic pathologist Dr. D’Michelle DuPre said.

“I believe it would be so quick they would not experience pain at all,” DuPre testified, according to media reports.

Lawyers for the inmates also submitted autopsy photos and reports from inmates who died in the electric chair, saying they demonstrate the pain suffered. Those documents will be reviewed by the judge and not made public. Just three prisoners in South Carolina have chosen the electric chair since lethal injection was made available in 1995.

In closing arguments, lawyers for the state said the other side did not prove that electrocution or a firing squad is more painful than lethal injection, a method that has long been allowed across the country.

“We are in a court of law. This court’s job is to decide questions of law based on the law and based on the facts that it’s heard,” said attorney William Grayson Lambert who is representing the state.

Lawyers for Justice 360, a group that fights for fairness and transparency in death penalty and other major criminal cases and is representing the inmates, said this case wasn’t just about cold facts.

“This case isn’t all about science,” attorney Joshua Kendrick said according to media reports. “Our decisions today are guided by mercy.”

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Follow Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP.

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Director of Corrections Hilary Herman has described the reintegration of inmates into society after serving their time as the the ‘missing link’ at the Bordelais Correctional Facility (BCF).

“The reintegration piece which is the missing link in our Bordelais Correctional Facility – that doesn’t exist,” Herman disclosed during an interview broadcast this week by the National Television Network (NTN).

“And where it shows itself is when we have forty-seven individuals returning to the facility between March 26th and July 30th. With forty-seven individuals returning to the facility, which means that they have been to Bordelais at least twice,” he explained.

Herman said in not preparing inmates for the world outside, there’s no support system to help them and no guidance.

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As a result, he asserted, the chances are that the cycle of imprisonment will continue.

In this regard, he explained that groups such as Back On Track Inc, a non-government organisation conducting a prison ministry to readjust inmates, could be instrumental in reintegration.

Herman also said another of the BCF’s needs is inmate assessment.

“That right now we do not have and that’s a barrier. We need to assess the inmates,” he stated, adding that the institution desperately needs a Psychologist.

The Director of Corrections indicated that if the BCF cannot make inmate assessments, no accurate picture of sentence management would emerge.

“The inmate should be assessed at day one and from the very day he comes into our institution, his sentence should be managed until the day he leaves,” Herman stated.

He said the absence of that process was also a missing link.

The current population at BCF is 514. 190 are Male Sentenced and 304 are Male Remand. Six are Male Juveniles, 4 are female sentenced and 10 are female Remand inmates.

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