Miller says people resort to street justice because courts “won’t do a damn thing”
“This country ain’t gonna never get any better unless they get the guts to do what the law says”
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Speaking to Eyewitness News after being followed and robbed of $2,700 yesterday, former Cabinet Minister Leslie Miller yesterday once again renewed calls for capital punishment amidst a recent increase in killings on New Providence.
Miller has been an aggressive advocate for hanging throughout his political career.
“We are never going to detect crime unless we implement the laws of our land in its full context,” he told Eyewitness News.
“Nothing is going to happen.”
Referring to his incident, Miller said: “I already write this off. I will go to my grave and ain’t a damn thing will happen. That’s why the fellows kill at will.”
Miller said he believes criminals, specifically murderers, no longer fear going to jail, suggesting that the death penalty is “the only remedy”.
“If you take a life, yours got to be taken,” he said.
“Who gives you the right to take God’s life and then you walk free?
“This is why you see now you find them on the streets dead; people taking the law into their own hands because they know the courts ain’t ga do a damn thing to take away the pain and suffering that they went through.”
The former Progressive Liberal Party MP noted that he can relate to those family members, pointing to the 2002 murder of his son Mario Miller, and suggested he has yet to get justice for the tragedy.
Miller’s son was found dead with multiple stab wounds in bushes near the Super Value grocery store in Winton.
“Don’t tell me about the law in this country,” he said.
“The law in this country is a joke when it comes to taking people’s lives, and that’s why this country ain’t gonna never get any better unless they get the guts to do what the law says.”
Miller claimed he had been followed from CIBC FirstCaribbean bank on Madeira Street to Xtra Value on Thompson Boulevard, where his SUV was broken into and $2,700 was stolen from under the seat where he had hidden the funds in a binder.
He said he had been in the grocery store for under five minutes when car break-in took place.
Police recently reported a spate of killings between July 8 and July 12 that left five men dead.
Another man was killed just three days later in Elizabeth Estates.
Minister of National Security Marvin Dames said last month that while overall crime for 2021 reflects an eight percent reduction compared to last year, there has been a 52 percent increase in murders and a 42 percent increase in armed robberies related.
There has not been an execution in The Bahamas since David Mitchell was executed on January 6, 2000.
He was hanged after killing two German tourists.
In July 2017, Dames said the Minnis administration will push for the death penalty to be enforced in an effort to reduce violent crime.
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