Skip to main content arrow-down arrow-tail-right arrow-triangle-right calendar camera compass download email eye facebook flag mail phone pin play send square-right tag twitter youtube badge message

Antigua Prisoner Released After 20 Years on Death Row

  • News
  • 23 Nov 2016

After 20 years on death row Lorriston Cornwall has been released from prison in Antigua.

Cornwall was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of his former girlfriend. At the time Antigua carried the mandatory death penalty for murder, a practice which has since been found to violate fundamental human rights.

Cornwall’s death sentence was set aside by the High Court in 2015, along with that of six other prisoners who had also been given the mandatory death sentence. Antigua has not carried out an execution since 1991 and these were the last remaining prisoners on death row.

During Cornwall’s resentencing the High Court was presented with evidence of Cornwall’s rehabilitation and remorse about the crime. It also considered that Cornwall had spent two decades on death row, during which time he had come within days of execution. Following the Privy Council’s ruling in the case of Pratt and Morgan, no prisoner in the Caribbean can spend more than five years on death row without his or her execution constituting inhuman or degrading treatment.

In a judgment delivered on 22 November 2016, the Court took into account the breaches of Cornwall’s rights through the imposition of the unlawful mandatory sentence and prolonged period on death row, as well as the mitigating factors in the case, and resentenced Cornwall to 30 years imprisonment. Given the time deducted for good behaviour and time already served, this means he will be set free immediately.

One of the other remaining death row prisoners, Michael Mason was also released following his separate resentencing proceedings.

Update (29/11/2016)

All of Antigua’s remaining death row prisoners have now been resentenced, leaving the country’s death row empty. Antigua joins five other retentionist countries in the Caribbean that have emptied their death rows; Cuba, Dominica, St Lucia and most recently Belize and Jamaica.

Related articles: “From death row to freedom — murder convicts released”, Antigua Observer Newspaper, 23 November 2016

“Former death row inmates to serve more time”, Antigua Observer Newspaper, 29 November 2016

Notes to Editors

The Death Penalty Project assisted local attorneys, Clement Bird and Kendrickson Kentish, the Antigua legal team in Cornwall’s resentencing, with the support of UK barrister Joe Middleton of Doughty Street Chambers, who was instructed pro bono and Amanda Clift-Matthews (In-house Counsel).

Latest news

Privy Council clarifies the approach trial judges should adopt when explaining “intent” to juries in The Bahamas
Read More
International Women's Day Q&A: Women in Human Rights
Read More
Cayman News Service: UK court rules against closed-door legal hearing
Read More
Cayman Loop News - Justin Ramoon, sentenced for murder, gets go ahead for judicial review
Read More
PRESS RELEASE - Privy Council refuses to allow Cayman Government to hold secret hearings in prisoner transfer case
Read More
Cayman Compass - Privy Council rules against secret trial for exiled killers
Read More
Cayman Marl Road - Privy Council refuses secret hearings in Cayman prisoner transfer case
Read More
NEW op-ed: Time to scrap capital punishment in Taiwan
Read More
Privy Council: Appeal dismissed amidst serious disclosure failings
Read More
James Guthrie, impressive barrister whose work in the Privy Council included a string of landmark cases – obituary
Read More
LATEST OP-ED: Hoyle & Jabbar - Death penalty doesn’t deter crime
Read More
New article in Kenya's The Star: Death row convicts in Kenya not threatened by penalty – findings
Read More
PRESS RELEASE - New research exploring socio-economic profiles of Kenya’s death row prisoners
Read More
Kenyan prisoners on death row weren’t deterred by the threat of the death penalty: new research findings
Read More
The Death Penalty Project pays tribute to James Guthrie KC
Read More
London-based NGO to challenge lawfulness of Guyana’s death penalty at CCJ
Read More
PRESS RELEASE - Guyana’s Court of Appeal refuses to declare the death penalty unconstitutional
Read More
The Conversation: 'Why has Kenya not abolished the death penalty? Habit and inertia'
Read More
Political and legal issues: reflections on our report launch in Kenya, Nairobi
Read More

Stay up-to-date with our work