July 09, 2004
Liar, Liar: An open letter to the Bahamian Legal System
manˇslaughˇter n. The unlawful killing of one human by another without express or implied intent to do injury.
Dear Bahamian Legal System,
Once again (yes, again) Bahamians involved in the legal system have failed to understand the importance of their "jobs". Your job, whether as a "juror", a "judge" or even a "court stenographer", becomes very significant when a murderer is on trial, whether that person is guilty or innocent. Unfortunately, I see more justice on Law & Order and Judge Judy than I do within the Bahamian "legal system".
Don't deny it, the list of court mishaps is as long as an award show's red carpet. One question... how many lives have to be taken, have to be snatched from the earth, before you realise that pre-meditated murder isn't manslaughter? How long will it take for you to realise that every time you hand down a manslaughter verdict the guilty criminal laughs all the way back to their cell? Is that justice?
On August 17, 2002, Marcia Rose McKenzie, a 35 year old woman from Toronto, was brutally murdered. She had been chopped seven times with a cutlass and her body was left in a sandpit on the beach. The accused murderer, Leroy Russell, who admitted to the murder on video during a police interview, received a manslaughter conviction for the crime. Manslaughter!?! For pre-meditated, cold blooded, and BRUTAL murder?!
How can chopping a woman to death be considered "without express or implied intent to do injury"?
It seems everytime a foreigner is murdered, the murderer gets off with a manslaughter conviction, no matter how brutal the murder, or how obvious their guilt. Many people are still reeling from the manslaughter conviction of Tenel McIntosh for the brutal murder of the women on Paradise Island several years ago. Some people hint that these men were "framed" by the police. If true, that would only prove - beyond a shadow of a doubt - that the Bahamian criminal justice system is a sham, a complete and embarrassing failure.
Is this what the Bahamas will be remembered for? A lawless and renegade paradise, filled with a bunch of feeble-minded, bribe-taking leeches, who let Bahamian murderers off lightly when they kill foreigners? Tourism, in case you've forgotten, is the only reason the Bahamas is still in existence. And the Bahamas will not remain in existence if this perverted trend toward the murder of foreigners continues. By the way, if you think this letter is too harsh, it's not. It is well deserved justice for a society of criminals.
Sincerely,
An Aggravated Bahamian