Former Antigua Prosecutor Urges OECS Leaders to Engage Sentencing Council Over Gun Sentences

Former Antigua and Barbuda prosecutor Adlai Smith is urging Prime Minister Gaston Browne and other OECS leaders to take a regional approach to concerns over sentencing by directly engaging the body responsible for developing sentencing guidelines.

Smith, who now serves as Director of Public Prosecutions in St Kitts and Nevis, said concerns about what are perceived to be lenient sentences, particularly for serious firearm offences, should be addressed through the Sentencing Council rather than through criticism of judges.

His comments come as Browne continues to call for tougher penalties for serious crimes involving firearms and has publicly expressed concern about sentences handed down in some cases.

Smith said judges are required to apply established sentencing principles and guidelines and cannot simply depart from them because of political pressure or public dissatisfaction.

“Because judges follow rules, they follow guidelines. They can’t just decide, well, they’re not following the guidelines simply because a politician or public uproar is there,” Smith said.

“There’s a principle to it. So, the strategic approach to this, you have to go and deal with the source of it which is the Sentencing Council, which drafts these guidelines.”

According to Smith, Browne should work alongside his counterparts across the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States to make a collective case for changes where governments believe existing guidelines are producing inadequate sentences.

“And I said, the strategy has got to be that the prime minister, in conjunction with his regional counterparts in the OECS have to come and say together we have a problem with the sentences that have been passed,” he said.

Smith pointed to St Kitts and Nevis to illustrate how sentencing guidelines can significantly reduce the amount of time an offender ultimately spends behind bars, even where legislation provides for a substantial maximum penalty.

He said ordinary firearm possession in St Kitts and Nevis can attract a maximum sentence of 30 years, but the application of sentencing guidelines may establish a starting point considerably below that maximum.

“You take for example St Kitts and Nevis. Our gun laws, your regular firearm possession can carry up to a maximum of 30 years. But the broad majority of cases fall within a class whereby, based on the sentencing guidelines, the starting point is about 50 percent of the whole sentence (and) 50 percent of 30 is 15,” Smith explained.

That would establish a starting point of about 15 years. Smith said further reductions may then be applied where an accused person pleads guilty and has other mitigating factors in their favour.

“And if a person is pleading guilty which is often the case, you give up to one-third discount. That takes it down to 10 and then you take off more mitigating factors as the case may be,” he said.

The DPP recalled one firearm case he prosecuted in the High Court where the offence carried a maximum penalty of 30 years, but the defendant ultimately received a six-year prison sentence after the applicable reductions were made.

“After all the discounts, the person was sent to prison for six years. That’s quite a heavy discount. And that’s where the maximum is 30,” Smith said.

He argued that the example demonstrates why simply increasing maximum penalties may not necessarily result in substantially longer sentences once the guidelines and applicable discounts are taken into account.

“But if we are starting at 30 and we end up at six, then naturally, if you start at 15 then you might end up with two or three lenient sentences based on the application of the sentencing guidelines,” he said.

Smith maintained that the more effective approach would therefore be for regional governments to formally engage the Sentencing Council and seek changes to the guidelines themselves.

He also revealed that a member of the Sentencing Council who works as a prosecutor in his office has indicated a willingness “to guide whoever wants to make an application to that particular august body in order to effect meaningful change.”

The intervention adds another perspective to the ongoing debate over sentencing for firearm offences, shifting attention from the individual decisions of judges to the regional guidelines that courts are expected to apply when determining sentences.

This article was adapted from original reporting by Tahna Weston, Antigua Observer by Newsco.