The Tribune

By LAMECH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

ljohnson@tribunemedia.net

AN expected resentencing for a murder convict initially on death row was postponed yesterday by six days.

Duke Smith, who was convicted in 1977 of the fatal stabbing of Ranwell Dorsett with whom he lived, appeared before Senior Justice Jon Isaacs for resentencing as a result of a 1994 Privy Council ruling.

The ruling came in the case Pratt and Morgan vs the Attorney General of Jamaica, in which a man on death row for more than five years had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment. The Privy Council ruled that excessive delays on death row amounted to inhumane or degrading treatment.

Yesterday, a probation officer noted in his report to the judge that Smith went completely blind in recent months and has been behind bars for 38 years. A recommendation was made that he be released and handed over to the Geriatrics Unit at Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre.

The judge said he would hear from the attending physician at Her Majesty’s Prisons before proceeding with his resentencing and adjourned the matter to July 2.

Smith is represented by Calvin Seymour.

Algernon Allen II represents the Crown.