The sentencing hearing for Max Tito, the first in the country for a convicted murderer, was deferred yesterday to next week because of a delay in written submissions from the prosecution and the request for a psychiatric evaluation of the prisoner.
Tito, who was convicted last month of the May 2002 murder of 16-year-old Donell Conover, will now have to wait until Thursday, April 13 to learn his fate.
It will be the first time in The Bahamas’ judicial history that a Supreme Court judge will exercise discretion in sentencing a convicted murderer.
Justices are now required to consider other sentences, apart from death, in the case of convicted murderers following a Privy Council decision that ruled the mandatory death sentence in The Bahamas unconstitutional.
Before the ruling earlier this year, convicted murderers were automatically sentenced to hang.
Justice Anita Allen said that she had received the Crown’s submission only yesterday, while defence attorney Wayne Munroe told the court he received the paper work last Thursday.
The defence is expected to complete its written submissions later this week.
Director of Public Prosecutions Bernard Turner explained that he had been out of office last week, but assured the court that instructions had been given for the submissions to be forwarded.
In addition to the delay in submissions, Mr. Turner raised the issue of the absence of the judgement confirming the Privy Council’s ruling.
Justice Allen also suggested that given the details of a welfare report on Tito, a psychiatric evaluation would be required before sentencing.
The sentencing hearing is being carried out in the absence of sentencing procedures that the Office of the Attorney General promised would be put in place after the Privy Council’s ruling.
Tito was unanimously convicted of murdering Miss Conover, whose body was found in a quarry pit off Cowpen Road on May 21, 2002. Her skull had been crushed and parts of her body covered in burn marks.
It took a jury of 11 women and one man less than three hours to find Tito guilty on March 20.
However, Tito maintains his innocence. Immediately after the verdict was handed down last month, he told the court, “I share my condolences with the family but I didn’t do it.”
His lawyer, Wayne Munroe has already indicated that he intends to appeal the conviction.
There was no direct evidence linking Tito to the murder of Ms. Conover; however, the prosecution centred its case on DNA evidence and testimony that Tito spoke to the high school student and told her that he would pick her up, hours before she is believed to have died.
By: Erica Wells, The Bahama Journal
