UPDATE: Rodman Moses Lewis sentenced to 18 years in prison for murder – no death penalty

Former Prison Officer, Rodman Moses Lewis of  Goodwill who was in 2020, convicted for the murder of his ex-girlfriend and child’s mother Triscia Rivere, has been sentenced to 18 years, 8 months and two weeks in prison.

Lewis pleaded not guilty to murder on an indictment filed on July 21, 2020, and following a six and half week trial, he was found guilty of murder on November 19, 2020.

The facts of the case are that on November 3, 2015, Lewis accompanied Alana John Baptiste, Riviere’s best friend, to Stock Farm where the women resided with two children, Rodman’s son and John Baptiste’s one-year-old daughter. Upon arrival, Lewis and Riviere, who was 26-years at the time, had an argument which ended with him murdering her with a cooking cylinder in her kitchen.

Nine months prior to the incident, the deceased and Lewis were in a long term relationship which produced a son who was four years old at the time of the murder.

Following the guilty verdict handed down by a five-man, four-woman jury, the prosecution had sought the death penalty as they deemed Lewis’s action “the worst of the worst.”

However, although Lewis maintained his innocence in the matter, his attorney Anthony Commodore, during a plea in mitigation after his client’s conviction, had urged the court to consider the person of Lewis and all that he was before he committed the offense.

He suggested that a jail sentence not exceeding 20 years was satisfactory for the murder convict as he “can be rehabilitated.”

In handing down her sentence virtually today, February 25, 2022, Justice Wynante Adrien-Roberts said the sentence was constructed with consideration and application of section 2 of the Offenses Against the Persons Act of the Revised Laws of Dominica 1990, practice directions on sentencing for the offense of murder for the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court and the established principles of sentencing.

In reviewing the prosecutions request for the death penalty, Justice Adrien-Roberts explained that this is the maximum statutory sentence or the most severe sentence to which the defendant is liable.

She said the death penalty must only be considered in cases where the offender was an adult when he committed the offense, where there has been a conviction after trial, the rarest of the rare or the worst of the worst, where there is no reasonable prospect of reform of the offender, where the offender has been appropriately evaluated by a psychiatrist, the character of the offender appears to be not with ordinary civilized behavior and where the object of punishment cannot be achieved by means other than sentence of death.

Justice Adrien-Roberts stated that having considered this case, “I found that these circumstances were not present and therefore, I would not consider this case to be one appropriate for a sentence of death.”

The second or less severe sentence, a whole life sentence, was also considered but in assessing the starting point for such sentence, the court must consider the seriousness of the offense as being exceptionally high. Such cases she explained, would include: a murder of two or more persons, the murder is associated with a series of serious criminal acts, a substantial degree of premeditation or planning, the abduction of the victim or murder involved in sexual or sadistic conduct, a murder involving prolonged suffering or torture, the murder of a police officer, emergency service worker, prison officer, judicial officer, prosecutor, health worker, teacher, community worker, or any other public official exercising  public or community functions, or as a political activist, or the offense arose because of the victims occupation of voluntary.

Other instances where a whole life sentence could be applied would be in murders relating to a membership of a criminal gang, a murder which is an act of terrorism, motivated by hatred for or prejudice against the group of people to which the offender believed the victim belonged.

She said this sentence was not applicable in Lewis’ case as he did not fall in any of the categories outlined nor did he have a previous conviction of murder or previous convictions for serious offenses of violence.

The other possible sentence that was considered was a determinate sentence of 40 years within a range of 30 to 50 years.

However, the Judge explained that such a sentence would apply for offenders who pleaded guilty and would otherwise face a whole life term, as well as a murder involving the use of a firearm, a murder which was unplanned in the course of a felony, a murder intended to obstruct or interfere with the course of justice and a murder with a lesser degree of sexual or sadistic conduct.

“Again, the evidence did not reveal any of these factors or circumstances that will peg the present situation with this particular category of sentencing,” the judge said.

Justice Adrien-Roberts further stated that paragraph eight of the practice directions give guidance for a more fitting sentence in which Lewis’s case falls, a determinate sentence of 25 years within a range of 15 to 35 years.

She established the starting point of the 22 years and adjusted upwards and downwards for the mitigating and aggravating factors.

In adjusting the sentencing for the aggravating and mitigating factors of the offense,  the court found that the fact that the crime was committed in the presence of two young children, one being the son of the deceased, and the other the daughter of John Baptiste who was 1-year-old at the time, was counted as an aggravating factor.

Additionally, the court also pointed out that the circumstances of this murder was rather gruesome and the manner of the commission of the offense was exceptionally “grave, heinous and violent.”

The court found no mitigating factors of the offense and accordingly, the sentence was adjusted upwards by three years, which stood at 25 years.

In the second step of the construction exercise, the court adjusted the figure within a range for aggravating and mitigating factors affecting the offender.

The aggravating factor against Lewis was that he had shown little or no remorse.

“The only expression of remorse was to the Consultant Psychiatrist while preparing the psychiatric report. The parents of the deceased hold the view that the defendant is not remorseful. The father of the deceased told the Welfare Officer that Rodman demonstrated no remorse for his actions. The mother of the deceased stated that she has forgiven the defendant for his actions, but is not satisfied as he has yet to apologize to her and her  family. Accordingly, she is awaiting an apology from the defendant to receive closure from her daughter’s death,” the Judge said.

She added that Lewis, at the time of the offense was a Prison Officer which falls within the category of law enforcement. Hence, for these two aggravating factors, the sentence was adjusted upwards by one year.

A detailed examination of the evidence, Social Inquiry and psychiatric report, resulted in the court’s finding of three mitigating factors that went in the offender’s favor. These included the fact that he has no previous convictions, that he is the father of a minor son and according to the mother of the deceased, she did not know him to be a violent person. The sentence was adjusted downwards by one year which brought it back down to 25 years.

The court was also required to give full credit to the defendant for the time served on remand awaiting trial and sentence which amounted to six years, three months, two weeks, a total of 2,300 days incarcerated on remand. Accordingly the sentence was reduced to 18 years, eight months and two weeks.”

“Mr. Rodman Moses Lewis, for the murder of Triscia Riviere on the 3rd day of November 2015 at Stock Farm in the Parish of St. George in the Commonwealth of Dominica, I sentence you to 18 years, eight months and two weeks imprisonment,” Justice Adrien-Roberts ordered.