Shadow Minister for National Security Dr. Andre Rollins believes The Bahamas should carry out capital punishment using lethal injections.

Rollins told The Guardian, "I personally support capital punishment. However, I am in favor of it being administered via lethal injection to offer a preemptive defense to the inevitable criticism that will come from parts of the international community that are pressuring countries around the world to repeal their capital punishment laws."

The Fort Charlotte MP added, "Therefore, I believe that any effective argument for the maintenance of capital punishment as a form of legal recourse requires that it not be undertaken in a way that can be described as grossly draconian or barbaric by those who oppose capital punishment within the international community, particularly human rights organizations."

The Bahamas still has hangings on its law books but no one has been executed in the country since David Mitchell on January 6, 2000. It has become increasingly difficult for the country to carry out executions as a result of Privy Council rulings over the years.

The Privy Council has ruled that it would be cruel and inhumane to execute someone who has been under the sentence of death for more than five years. It later ruled that the mandatory death sentence was unconstitutional. It has also reserved executions for the "worst of the worst" murders. There has long been widespread support for capital punishment in The Bahamas.

Last year, a scientific survey conducted by Public Domain, a local market research and public opinion polling company, confirmed this strong support. The results showed that 76.4 percent of respondents strongly supported the death penalty; 12.7 percent somewhat supported it; 2.1 percent somewhat disagreed; 7.1 percent strongly opposed the death penalty and 1.8 percent did not answer.

While Prime Minister Perry Christie has said repeatedly he supports the death penalty, no one has been hanged while he was in office. Five of the 50 men hanged in The Bahamas since the 1920s were hanged under the FNM between 1997 and 2002; 13 were hanged during the 25-years of the Pindling government and the remaining 32 were executed between 1929 and 1967.

Speaking at the funeral of murdered prison officer, Dion Bowles, in 2006, Christie declared his full support for the death penalty. Christie was back on the death penalty topic on the campaign trail leading to the 2012 general election.

Speaking at a Progressive Liberal Party conclave in 2011, he said, "One of the most complex of all situations is the question of capital punishment. There are some of us who agree and some of us who disagree, but I'm here tonight to say that the PLP has always complied with and carried out the law as it relates to hanging and nothing will change with respect to that," he said.

At the start of 2014, Christie suggested that he was willing to move on the issue. He suggested to The Nassau Guardian that there will be legislative and proposed constitutional changes to resume hangings. Leader of the Free National Movement (FNM) Dr. Hubert Minnis has said he supports capital punishment. The issue is gaining more steam with a new murder record recently set. There have been 135 murders this year.

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