Nassau, Bahamas -- "I suggest that the time has come to bring finality to this issue in The Bahamas, and to give our citizens the opportunity to decide whether the death penalty should be retained as a mandatory, or as a discretionary punishment, or whether it should be abolished.

I encourage you to include the appropriate question on any Referendum you may recommend," said President of The Bahamas Court of Appeal, the Hon. Mrs. Justice Anita Allen, in her presentation before the Constitutional Commission on Thursday, February 7, 2013.

Justice Allen said The Bahamas is not alone in dealing with this "legal conundrum" and that some CARICOM countries, namely Barbados and Jamaica have amended their constitutions to retain aspects of the death penalty. Barbados, said the Justice, "has gone as far as to expressly provide for the imposition of the mandatory death penalty, and made the CCJ (Caribbean Court of Justice) its final Court of Appeal."

The Appeals Court President however, made mention of the fact that the Bahamian penal code has been amended to provide for specific category of cases to which the death penalty should apply, but stopped short of further commentary on those legal amendments because in her words, "the law has not been tested." What has been tested, according to Justice Allen, was the Max Tido murder case and the decision rendered by Lord Kerr on behalf of the Board (of the Privy Council).

Lord Kerr opined that even though Tido's crime was "dreadful" and "appalling," is was "not one that warranted the punishment of death" as it did not satisfy the criterion of "worst of the worst" and "rarest of the rare" even though the school girl who Tido lured from her home was so tortured and bludgeoned that "her brain tissue was spewed outside of her body."

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