Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian..co.tt

A man from Point Fortin, who spent al­most three decades in prison for mur­der­ing a woman, has lost his case seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for not be­ing re­leased soon­er.

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment yes­ter­day, High Court Judge Bet­sy-Ann Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son dis­missed Reshi Bis­soon’s law­suit seek­ing dam­ages for breach­es of his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

Jus­tice Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son up­held an ap­pli­ca­tion from the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al al­leg­ing that the law­suit was an abuse of process, as the breach­es of his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights were con­sid­ered by Jus­tice Gail Gon­za­les, who re-sen­tenced him and or­dered his im­me­di­ate re­lease in 2023.

She said, “It would be in­ap­pro­pri­ate, hav­ing re­gard to the fore­go­ing, and in vi­o­la­tion of the doc­trine of res ju­di­ca­ta for this Court to per­mit the Claimant to re-lit­i­gate the is­sues raised be­fore Jus­tice Gon­za­les in or­der to de­ter­mine whether the Claimant is en­ti­tled to dam­ages.”

Bis­soon and two men were charged with mur­der­ing Leslie Ann Ram­say in No­vem­ber 1995.

Ram­say and her sis­ter were dri­ving along Bal­isi­er Av­enue in Pleas­antville when a ve­hi­cle crashed in­to them from be­hind.

The women were con­front­ed by a group of armed men from the oth­er ve­hi­cle, who shot Ram­say in her chest.

The men com­man­deered the sib­lings’ ve­hi­cle with them in­side and drove to a sug­ar cane field, where they forced them (the sib­lings) out be­fore dri­ving away.

Ram­say’s sis­ter sought as­sis­tance to take her sis­ter for med­ical treat­ment. Ram­say was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival at hos­pi­tal.

When Bis­soon was de­tained by the po­lice, he con­fessed his role in the crime. He de­nied shoot­ing Ram­say as he ad­mit­ted he just point­ed a gun at the sib­lings while dri­ving to the field. He al­so claimed that his co-ac­cused told him to shoot Ram­say’s sis­ter, but he re­fused.

One of Bis­soon’s co-ac­cused plead­ed guilty to the less­er of­fence of manslaugh­ter, while Bis­soon and Cur­tis Sir­ju went on tri­al for the crime.

Af­ter be­ing con­vict­ed in 1999, the duo was sen­tenced to death by hang­ing.

In 2008, Bis­soon’s sen­tence was com­mut­ed to life im­pris­on­ment based on a land­mark case in which a group of con­vict­ed mur­der­ers chal­lenged be­ing forced to re­main on death row even af­ter the five-year lim­i­ta­tion pe­ri­od for car­ry­ing out the death penal­ty un­der the Ja­maican case of Pratt and Mor­gan had ex­pired.

Bis­soon was re­cent­ly re-sen­tenced based on a more re­cent land­mark Privy Coun­cil case in which the British Law Lords ruled that pris­on­ers who ben­e­fit from com­mut­ed sen­tences should be giv­en def­i­nite prison terms based on the unique cir­cum­stances of their cas­es as op­posed to be­ing im­pris­oned for the re­main­der of their nat­ur­al lives.

Jus­tice Gon­za­les be­gan with a start­ing sen­tence of 30 years in de­cid­ing on the ap­pro­pri­ate sen­tence for Bis­soon.

Bis­soon was left with a 23-year sen­tence af­ter Jus­tice Gon­za­les ap­plied dis­counts for his pre­vi­ous good char­ac­ter, his at­tempts at re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion in prison and his role in Ram­say’s mur­der.

As Bis­soon had al­ready served more than 27 years at the time, he was im­me­di­ate­ly re­leased.

In the law­suit, Bis­soon claimed that he should have been re­leased in 2018. He al­so con­tend­ed that he would have been re­leased in 2014 if prison re­mis­sion had been ap­plied for his good be­hav­iour.

He claimed that his rights to not be de­prived of his lib­er­ty ex­cept by due process of law and to the pro­tec­tion of the law un­der Sec­tions 4(a) and (b) of the Con­sti­tu­tion were in­fringed.