Convicted Cropper killer wants out of death row

CONVICTED killer Daniel Agard wants his death sentence vacated and to be removed from death row.

He has applied for an interim declaration that any attempt to carry out the death sentence imposed on him on September 13, 2013, and his continued detention on death row, will be in contravention of the Constitution. It comes up for hearing on Wednesday.

Agard’s application also asks for his sentence to be vacated and for him to be removed immediately from the condemned section of the Port of Spain prison.

Agard, 39, was twice convicted of the brutal murders of members of the Cropper family in 2001.

He first went to trial in 2004 when he and another man, Lester Pitman, were convicted and sentenced to hang for the murders of Maggie Lee, Lynette Lithgow-Pearson and John Cropper on December 11, 2001.

Agard was the great-nephew of John and the late independent senator Angela Cropper. Lee was his great-grandmother and Pearson his great-aunt.

Agard successfully appealed his convictions and a retrial was ordered. He was again convicted and three death sentences were again imposed on him on September 13, 2013, which he appealed and lost in July 2019.

He did not appeal further to the Privy Council.

His application said he has remained on death row since September 2013, a period of nine years, five months and 17 days. In all, he has spent 21 years in prison from the time of his arrest and charge in 2001, and ten years and two months on death row for his two sets of convictions.

His application says he has not contributed to any delay and remains under the sentence of death, which cannot now be lawfully carried out in keeping with the principles set out in the Jamaican death-penalty case of Pratt and Morgan. This principle is that to carry out a death sentence after more than a five-year delay would be cruel and inhuman punishment.

According to the application, in 2019, it should have been clear to the State that the death penalty could not be carried out because of Pratt and Morgan. It took no steps to commute Agard's sentence, so his continued detention in a condemned cell is unconstitutional.

The constitutional claim says: “Prolonged and unjustifiable delay in the carrying out of an execution imposed by a court of competent jurisdiction could have the effect of rendering the execution not being in accordance with the due process of law guaranteed…under the Constitution.

“...A State that wishes to retain capital punishment must accept the responsibility of ensuring that execution follows as swiftly as practicable after sentence, allowing a reasonable time for appeal and consideration of reprieve.”

The claim set out a rough timeline for carrying out capital punishment, suggesting 12 months to hear an appeal after conviction and six months for the Privy Council to dispose of it.

In all, the claim suggested disposing of a domestic appeal in two years and for any complaints to international human rights bodies to be made 18 months thereafter.

It also says where there has been a long delay in carrying out a death sentence, which renders it unlawful, then it must be “judicially commuted,” and the High Court has the power to impose a substitute sentence in keeping with the principles of sentencing.

“The fundamental reason why execution following the lapse of a prolonged period of time after sentence of death would constitute inhuman punishment is that the condemned man has suffered the agony of mind of facing the prospect of execution over that period.”

In his affidavit in support of the application and the claim, Agard said he has been incarcerated for more than half his life and has considered suicide many times. He spoke of the condition of the prison, allegedly being beaten during a prison riot, attacks by other inmates and what he felt when the death sentences were read to him, twice.

“It has haunted me from the time I heard those words to now.”

He said he was one of the youngest prisoners on death row and spoke of his incarceration there, where he has his own cell.

“You may be physically alive but you are emotionally dead. Each day on death row, the experiences that you are made to go through saps your very humanity.”

He says as a death row inmate, he cannot participate in any prison programmes or advance his education, as incarceration is only supposed to allow the condemned prisoner to prepare to “meet their maker.”

“The fear of being executed at the hands of the State is a very real one.”

He has also applied for a pardon but says he does not know if his plea has been considered.

Agard’s claim and application were filed on Monday.

His co-accused, Pitman, successfully challenged his case at appeal and his death sentence was commuted. He was eventually ordered not to be released before he serves a minimum of 40 years in prison.

John Cropper; Lee, who was his mother-in-law; and his sister-in-law Lynette, were killed at Cropper’s home at Mt Anne Drive, Second Avenue, Cascade, between December 11 and 12, 2001. Their bodies were found on December 13. They had been bound and gagged with electrical wire and their throats had been slit.

Lithgow-Pearson was a former television broadcaster with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

Cropper’s wife Angela, who was not at home at the time of the murders, died in London in November 2016.

At Agard’s trials, graphic video recordings of the crime scene were shown to jurors.

He is represented by attorneys Gerald Ramdeen, Wayne Sturge, Alexia Romero and Dayadai Harripaul.