Queen's Counsel Alair Shepherd, who has a reputation for last-minute rescuing of death row inmates, revealed that a lack of proper fees by the Government-funded system is a problem.
"Given the Legal Aid system, it is not customary for 'silk' to lead in a murder case. Legal Aid dominates in murder cases," said Shepherd.
He was appearing before the Caribbean Court of Justice in Trinidad on Wednesday in an appeal of a civil suit won by Jeffrey Joseph and Lennox Boyce, by now the island's two most infamous prisoners.
Citing his own experience as a junior lawyer with five years' experience and defending a murder accused, Shepherd confessed that at the time he was not equipped for the trial and missed relevant cases.
In fighting the present case, Shepherd said that the first time the men had a chance to mitigate was before the Mercy Committee and that called for gathering further evidence that include psychiatric reports.
Shepherd added that those exposed to the death penalty must be well represented: "But that is not going to happen unless proper funding is available."
The prisoners sued the Attorney-General, the Superintendent of Prisons and the Chief Marshal after two attempts to hang them, claiming there had been a breach in procedure.
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in England had ruled definitively that hanging was not unconstitutional.
However, the two, while not further challenging that, sued on the grounds that the reading of the death warrants in 2002 and 2004 breached their constitutional right not to be executed while awaiting a final report from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
But Government argued and lost at the local Court of Appeal that the men did not have a right to go to the IACHR since the country had only signed a treaty, but had not passed any law to give it effect. It was from that case the present appeal stems.
The CCJ has reserved its decision in the matter.
* antoinetteconnell@ nationnews.com