Repeat offender Akeem Edwards, who stabbed and killed fellow inmate Theon Smith during an argument at the Mazaruni Prison in 2014, was yesterday sentenced to 47 years in prison by Justice Priya Sewnarine-Beharry.
A jury had convicted Edwards of the capital offence last December, but his sentencing had been deferred for a probation report.
According to the report from Senior Probation and Social Services Officer Orlene Sumner-Forrester, the now 32-year-old Edwards lost his father at age 11 and his mother at age 16, and had been left to fend for himself.
The court heard that during that time, the teen was forced to maintain himself financially, and soon dropped out of school and gained employment as a block-maker.
This the probation officer said, however, was only for a very short period before the young man fell in with the wrong group and gravitated towards friends of unsavory character; eventually turning to the streets and a life of crime.
At the age of 18, Edwards was imprisoned on charges of armed robbery and narcotic-possession.
He has been imprisoned ever since. He had only four years remaining to serve for those convictions, when he stabbed and killed Smith in his cell eight years ago.
The probation officer, like the offender’s attorney Lachmi Dindayal, described him as having been negatively impacted by the social and economic constraints with which he was confronted from an early stage in his life.
An “object of societal misgivings” was how his attorney put it; adding that the associated ills had militated against his young client; for which he asked the Judge to consider as he begged for leniency.
Though describing Edwards’ situation as being one “akin to quicksand,” Sumner-Forrester emphasized the importance of laws for the smooth functioning of an orderly and civilized society.
Against this background she said that the young man’s actions contravened those laws for which they are consequences and so the Court needed to impose whatever sentence it deemed fit, with the aim of also deterring potential offenders.
Notwithstanding the social ills against Edwards, however, Prosecutor Tiffini Lyken in an impassioned address asked the Judge not to be swayed by counsel’s plea in mitigation; describing the offender as a master manipulator.
Lyken said that even in the face of the evidence and the jury’s verdict, the young man continues to show no remorse for his actions, protesting that the charge against him was malicious.
She said that as he had done on the fateful day of the killing “by utilizing his skill and manipulation tactics” to mislead prison officers, he sought to do the same by claiming to the probation officer that he had been doing well in anger-management sessions behind bars.
Using the very probation report as a reference, however, the prosecutor pointed out that prison officials had related Edwards’ total lack of disregard and his disrespect not only for inmates, but the prison authority as well.
Lyken said that the young man was intent on carrying out the fatal attack on Smith because of a “frivolous” argument stemming from a cellphone.
She said the brazen attack in a prison institution not only shows his disregard for authority, but that he tactfully manipulated the prison officer from whom he sought permission to use the washroom, knowing full well he had no such intention.
Lyken recalled that Edwards, after asking to use a bucket from the washroom facility went into Smith’s cell instead with a concealed improvised, contraband knife with which he dealt him several stabs.
Noting the extent of the injury sustained by Smith from which he died of perforation of the right lung and right pulmonary artery, Lyken asked that Edwards be visited with a severe sentence.
When given a chance to address the court before his sentence was imposed, Edwards said that he deserved an opportunity “to go home,” because he had already spent some 14 years behind bars.
“I want a opportunity fuh guh back to society, because is since I is a teenager I deh in hay,” he stated before enquiring from the Judge whether she had children.
Edwards was not supplied an answer from the Judge.
The repeat-offender then told the judge that prison was not a “nice place” and to experience what he had to endure, said he wished he could trade places with her Honour.
In arriving at the sentence, Justice Sewnarine-Beharry noted that she had taken into account the plethora of aggravating, as well as mitigating factors presented by both the prosecution and defence.
Among the aggravating factors, the judge underscored Edwards’ previous convictions which she said indicated his inclination to a life of crime and the fact that he had carefully planned and premeditated to carry out the murder.
She noted, too, the nature and prevalence of the offence and the strong message of deterrence which needed to be sent to potential offenders.
In all the circumstances, the Judge sentenced Edwards to 47 years in prison from which she said the prison will make deductions for remission.
She ordered, however, that he serves at least 40 years before becoming eligible for parole.
It had been Edwards’ second trial for Smith’s murder. His first ended in a hung jury.
Smith, who was 21 years old at the time of his death, had been serving a five-year prison term for a series of armed robberies.
Reports had been that nearing the end of a recreation break at the penitentiary, the men had an argument during which Smith was stabbed.
The trial was heard at the High Court at Suddie.
