Convicted murderer beats death sentence
Published:Tuesday | December 21, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
The man who was sentenced to hang for the murders of former president of the Jamaica Gasolene Retailers Association, Lloyd G. Brown, and his fiancée, Sandra Campbell, was successful yesterday in having the judge's ruling set aside.
Peter Dougal, 41, farmer and construction worker of Santoy district, Hanover, was instead sentenced by the Court of Appeal to life imprisonment. The court ordered that Dougal must serve 45 years before he can be eligible for parole.
The court will give its reasons in writing at a later date.
Dougal, who was represented by attorney-at-law Dr Randolph Williams, had challenged the death sentence on the grounds that the judge had failed to compare the facts of his case with those of other extreme and exceptional murders before imposing the ultimate death penalty.
Dougal and 42-year-old labourer Donald Whyte, of Love Lane, Kingston, were convicted in 2007 of the double murder. Brown and Campbell were fatally shot at Campbell's Stilwell Road residence in Stony Hill, St Andrew, about 4 a.m. on June 5, 2005.
Whyte was sentenced to life imprisonment and ordered to serve 40 years before becoming eligible for parole. Whyte appealed on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence to link him with the murders. The Court of Appeal freed him in December last year.
The points raised in Dougal's appeal were of such importance that a five-member panel, instead of the usual three, heard the appeal.
Williams argued that Justice Norma McIntosh erred in sentencing Dougal to death without showing in her reasons that she had considered and was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that there was no reasonable prospect of reform.
McIntosh, in passing the death sentence on Dougal, had described him as sheer evil and cold-blooded. She said Dougal showed no remorse for what he had done.
Williams told the Court of Appeal that Dougal did show remorse, because a short time after the murders, he told someone that: "If the lady did just keep quiet … ."