25 July 2023 :

Trinity Lewis, also known as "Prack," on July 22, 2023 was sentenced to hang by Justice Kathy Ann Waterman-Latchoo after she found him guilty of murdering Mark Anthony Songui on December 1, 2011, at Upper First Trace, Maingot Road, Tunapuna.
Lewis was before the court in a judge-only trial.
Songui was shot five times, according to the evidence led by prosecutors Indira Chinebas and Makira Mendes.
Songui, 25, and three others were sitting on a culvert when Lewis came up to them, pulled out a gun and fired five shots at Songui.
A resident testified to hearing the shots and seeing Lewis running in front of her home with the gun.
Songui's brother and two other witnesses gave "eye-see" statements to the police of what they saw but were deemed hostile at the trial. The dead man's brother said he no longer wanted anything to do with the case.
In assessing their evidence, Waterman-Latchoo held that their statements to the police were consistent with the evidence of the neighbor who heard the shots.
Having also found the neighbour's evidence to be credible and reliable, the judge examined the statements of the three for consistency, and found they were consistent with the account given by the neighbour.
Although he did not testify, Lewis's defence was that he was not there at the time of the killing and the witnesses were mistaken. However, the judge did not believe this and found that the prosecution witnesses were trustworthy and reliable.
Lewis was represented by attorneys Orin Kerr and Miguel Rawlins.

08 February 2023 :

A 38-year-old man has been sentenced to death in Trinidad and Tobago for fatally beating his two-year-old son in 2008.
Andre Devon Parris, of St Lucien Road Diego Martin, was sentenced to death on 30 January 2023 by a High Court Judge for the murder of his two-year-old son, Jahiem Roberts, which occurred at their home on 9 December 2008.
According to police reports, the toddler was severely beaten to death at his Diego Martin home at the hands of a male relative.
An autopsy conducted on the child's body revealed he died from a fractured skull.
Parris was arrested and charged with Murder by Inspector Britton-Lawrence who led investigations into the circumstances surrounding the death of his son Jahiem Roberts.
The death sentence was handed down to Parris on 30 January 2023 at the Port-of-Spain 12th High Court by Judge Gail Gonzales who adjudicated on the matter.

20 November 2023 :

On 14 November 2023, Wenceslaus James, the longest serving death row inmate in the country, was released by order of the High Court of Trinidad and Tobago. Convicted for murder in 1996, Wenceslaus received the mandatory death sentence for the offence.
The Death Penalty Project (DPP) worked on the case alongside UK barrister Amanda Clift-Matthews and local attorney Daniel Khan in a lengthy legal battle for his release.
Having spent 24-years on death row, and over three decades in custody, Wenceslaus James is the longest serving death row inmate in the country. Throughout his detention, he has suffered extraordinary conditions on death row, including a near-death experience, when in 1999 his scheduled execution was halted without warning at the very last minute.
One morning in 1999, Wenceslaus was read his warrant of execution. He was taken to a cell awaiting execution, where he recalls “there was blood and vomit and excrement on the floor from the previous persons waiting to be hanged.” Adding to this horrifying experience, that morning he also heard the execution of his cell mate and co-defendant Antony Briggs.
With his execution seemingly imminent, suddenly without explanation he was taken back to his cell. He was not executed that day.
In the same year as his near-death experience, living in a cell right next to the gallows, Wenceslaus lived with the anguish and trauma of hearing nine other executions take place.
Wenceslaus, recalling the execution of his cell mate and co-defendant, said: “I could see the rope and hear the snap of the trapdoor. It still haunts me. I feel sick and weak. It was the most horrible experience of my life.”
Wenceslaus was convicted under the felony-murder principles. Had his case been heard now, based on the current law, the death sentence would not be mandatory, and he would be sentenced to a fixed term of imprisonment.
The High Court resentenced Wenceslaus to a determinate sentence, which he has already served. Wenceslaus James has now been released from prison.
Saul Lehrfreund, Co-Executive Director of The Death Penalty Project who led the legal team, said:
“We are delighted with the decision of the High Court of Trinidad and Tobago to release Wenceslaus. Having served such an extraordinary amount of time and suffering on death row, there was a clear breach on his constitutional rights. Trinidad and Tobago is the only country in the Commonwealth Caribbean to continue using a mandatory death penalty and the government themselves accept the mandatory imposition of the death penalty is cruel and inhuman punishment. We have worked extensively in Trinidad & Tobago for more than three decades and will continue do so and focus our efforts on legislative reform until this barbaric practice is abolished.”

06 September 2023 :

Four convicted killers housed in the condemned section of the Port of Spain prison at Frederick Street for decades have had their death sentences vacated.
In declaring that any attempt to carry out the death sentence on the four would be in contravention of their constitutional rights, Justice Margaret Mohammed on August 18, 2023 ordered that they be immediately removed from death row.
She also ordered that the four be resentenced by a judge in the Criminal Assizes.
Mohammed will also assess damages due to them for the breaches of their rights at a later date and ordered their attorneys to file submissions on the issue in November 2023 and January 2024.
The four who will now receive compensation from the State for the lengthy delay to execute them are Garvin Sookram, Jay Chandler, Keron Lopez and Mukesh Chandradath, who each filed constitutional motions alleging their rights were breached.
They are represented by attorneys Gerald Ramdeen, Wayne Sturge, Dayadai Harripaul and Nerisa Bala.
Each man presented the court with an affidavit detailing their complaints. Sookram, 48, has been on death row for 14 years, five months and six days, awaiting execution.
Chandler, 44, has been in the condemned section for 12 years; Lopez for 14 years, five months and six days and Chandradath for 12 years, two months and 19 days.
The men said being on death row for more than a decade has robbed them of the opportunity to prove to a court that they have served a satisfactory period of time to satisfy the requirements of retribution and deterrence.
“I would like an opportunity to prove to a court of law that I have served a proportionate and just punishment that equates to the crime that I was found guilty of committing,” one of the men said in their affidavits.
They said they all feared that if the court did not intervene, the State would continue to detain them indefinitely.
“I have suffered and continue to suffer and will continue to suffer at the hands of the State unless this court intervenes in this matter,” the judge was told.
Sookram, a reputed gang leader from Sawmill Avenue, Barataria, and his partner, Lopez, were convicted on March 2, 2009, of the murders of Kerwin "Richie" Hinds, and Kerwin "Ox" Cyrus, on July 28, 2004, at Sawmill Avenue, Barataria.
Chandler was sentenced to death on August 11, 2011, for the murder of Kirn Phillip on October 8, 2004. Phillip died after being stabbed, while both men were serving sentences at Golden Grove Prison, Arouca.
In 2021, Chandler urged the Privy Council to declare this country’s mandatory death penalty for murder as unconstitutional.
In May, last year, nine law lords ruled on the landmark case, pronouncing that the death penalty would remain on TT’s statute books as the punishment for murder.
Although it held that the punishment was cruel and unusual, they said it was not unconstitutional.
Trinidad is the last country in the English-speaking Caribbean to retain the mandatory death penalty for murder and the case reignited the debate on the death penalty.
In their ruling, the nine judges reproached TT for keeping the hangman’s noose.
“It is striking that there remains on the statute book a provision which, as the government accepts, is a cruel and unusual punishment because it mandates the death penalty without regard to the degree of culpability.”
Chandradath was convicted of murdering Selwyn Grant, 65, and his 70-year-old wife Ursula Innis at their home at Allen Drive, Syne Village, Penal in 2011.
The couple’s decomposing and headless bodies were discovered by their grandson on September 16, 1999.
Grant was found under an abandoned tank in the yard and his head was found in a bag secured by wire. Innis’ body was found in a bathtub in the bathroom, while her severed head was found in a bag floating in a water tank.
Chandradath filed a malicious prosecution and false imprisonment claim seeking $1 billion in compensation which was unanimously rejected by the Court of Appeal in 2019.