## Facts

- Four Barbadian nationals (Lennox Ricardo Boyce, Jeffrey Joseph, Frederick Benjamin Atkins, and Michael McDonald Huggins) were convicted of murder in Barbados and sentenced to death by hanging.
- The death sentences were mandatory under a statute that prescribed death as the sole penalty for murder, leaving no individualized sentencing.
- Barbados’ Constitution included a “savings clause” that insulated certain pre-independence laws and limited domestic courts’ ability to review the mandatory death penalty’s constitutionality.
- The individuals challenged the mandatory death penalty and related practices through the Inter-American human rights system after alleging that domestic law and remedies did not provide effective review.
- Allegations also included harsh death-row detention conditions and the practice of reading execution warrants (sometimes repeatedly while proceedings were ongoing), causing severe psychological distress.
- The Inter-American Commission found multiple violations and referred the matter to the Inter-American Court after the State did not fully implement recommendations.
- Barbados raised preliminary objections (including non-exhaustion and objections to the Commission’s processing), which the Court rejected before deciding the merits and reparations.

## Issues

1. Whether imposing a mandatory death sentence for murder, without individualized sentencing, violates the rights to life, humane treatment, and fair trial under the American Convention.
2. Whether death-row detention conditions and execution-related practices (including repeated reading of execution warrants) constitute cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.
3. Whether maintaining a constitutional savings clause that blocks constitutional review of Convention-incompatible penalties violates the obligation to adopt domestic measures giving effect to Convention rights.
4. Whether the mandatory sentencing framework and the limited availability of effective domestic remedies violate judicial guarantees and judicial protection.

## Decision

- The Court rejected Barbados’ preliminary objections and exercised jurisdiction to decide the merits, reparations, and costs.
- The Court held that the mandatory imposition of the death penalty for murder, without individualized consideration, constituted an arbitrary deprivation of life and violated Convention protections.
- The Court found violations of the right to humane treatment based on death-row conditions and the mental suffering associated with execution-related practices, including repeated reading of execution warrants.
- The Court held that the savings clause, as applied to shield the mandatory death penalty from effective judicial scrutiny, breached the State’s duty to adopt domestic measures giving effect to Convention rights.
- The Court found violations of fair-trial guarantees and judicial protection because the legal framework denied individualized sentencing and prevented effective remedies to challenge the mandatory nature of the penalty.
- The Court ordered reparations including commutation (or Convention-compliant resentencing), non-execution under the mandatory regime, legal and (if necessary) constitutional reforms, detention-condition improvements, publication measures, and payment of damages and costs.

## Legal Principles

- A death penalty regime that operates automatically upon conviction, without individualized sentencing to assess culpability and mitigation, is incompatible with the Convention’s restrictions on capital punishment and constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of life.
- Humane treatment protections are violated where detention conditions and execution procedures cause suffering beyond what is inherent in lawful detention, including severe mental suffering produced by execution uncertainty and repeated execution notifications.
- States must adopt legislative and other measures to give domestic legal effect to Convention rights; constitutional mechanisms cannot be used to preserve laws that generate ongoing Convention violations or block effective judicial review.
- Fair-trial guarantees include a meaningful opportunity to be heard on sentencing where the most severe punishment is at stake; a mandatory sentencing scheme that forecloses individualized consideration violates due process.
- Judicial protection requires effective remedies to challenge both rights-violating applications and rights-violating laws; remedies are ineffective where domestic courts are barred from reviewing the core legal defect.

## Conclusion

The Court concluded that Barbados’ mandatory death penalty and the constitutional barrier to reviewing it violated multiple Convention rights, and it required commutation or Convention-compliant resentencing, reforms to remove the mandatory regime and the savings-clause obstacle, and measures to address death-row treatment and provide compensation and costs.


Boyce v. Barbados, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 169 (2007)