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BRITISH EMBASSY.
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RECEIVED 1995
70. 51 12DEC 1977
DESK OFFICER
INDEX
No
Mr David ¦ Marke
ROUSKA lAction Take
Council of The District of Columbia
Washington DC 20004
Dear The Clarke,
325
WASHINGTON, D. C.
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2 December 1977
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Thank you for your letter of 26 November about the death penalties imposed on Larry Winfield Tacklyn and Erskine Burrows for a number of murders, including those of the Governor of Bermuda and his ADC in 1973. You also enclosed a copy of the District of Columbia Council's Resolution against the death penalty passed in 1976.
is you may know, there is no death penalty in the United Kingdom, since it was abolished by Act of Parliament. The constitutional position is that in Bermuda, a self-governing colony, the locally elected Bermuda Legislative Assembly has the final responsbility for the decision on whether to retain or abolish the death penalty in Bermuda. Capital punishment in Bermuda was, however, reaffirmed by the Legislative Assembly only two years ago.
In the cases of Larry Tacklyn and Erskine Burrows, the legal processes of Bermuda and the United Kingdom have been exhausted. A final appeal to the Privy Council against their conviction in the Bermuda courts was rejected in October. This was followed by a petition to The ueen asking for:-
(i)
clemency for the murderers;
(ii) the abolition of Capital Punishment in Bermuda.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary advised the Queen that there were no speci:l circumstances which would justify recommending clemency in these cases; and that the abolition of Capital Punishment was not a matter for the government or Parliament in the United Kingdom, but for the Bermuda Legislative Assembly. The Lucen accepted the recommendation and the petition was therefore rejected.
The question of whether or not capital punishment is ever justified is a difficult one. But as an elected representative yourself I am sure you would agree that it is a matter which should be decided by the elected representatives of the people or country concerned, in this case the members of the Bermuda Legislative Assembly. Clemency in individual cases can only be considered against the background of existing laws.
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