Life sentence for man who murdered wife in front of daughter, confirmed on appeal

The Court of Criminal Appeal has confirmed a life sentence handed to a man who stabbed his ex-partner to death in front of their daughter, but has allowed his sentence to be reviewed by the Parole Board after 25 years.

David Norbert Schembri, 41, of Sliema, was jailed for life with three 10-day periods of solitary confinement by an 8-1 verdict in 2009 after he was found guilty of stabbing his former partner, Josette Scicluna, 49 times and murdering her, in front of their seven-year-old daughter in 2004.

Schembri filed an appeal against his conviction, arguing amongst other things, that the first court had given a restrictive interpretation of the extenuating factor of “first transport of sudden passion, in consequence of which he was unable to resist” and that the fact that the verdict was not unanimous meant that he should have been given a lighter sentence.

The majority of Scicluna’s wounds were superficial slash wounds and not caused by stabbing, argued the defence. The life sentence with no parole had been excessive in the light of the non-unanimous verdict, he added.

The first court also made the observation that had another court acted differently, in the light of other criminal proceedings against Schembri, Josette Scicluna “would still be alive.”

Schembri felt that this remark was out of place and disrespectful of the other court. He argued that it indicated the first court to have been “predisposed” to apply the maximum punishment.

The court of Criminal Appeal, presided by judges Joseph R. Micallef, Abigail Lofaro and Joseph Zammit McKeon disagreed, holding this complaint to be unjustified. The remark had not been one of the reasons given for the punishment inflicted, much less the determining one, held the court.

“The reasons of the fist court were others and there were more than one, all mentioned and visible in the acts of the case.”

These, said the court, laid out plainly the reasons behind the handing down of the harshest possible sentence at law.

On his argument that life imprisonment breached the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights found more favour however, with the court of appeal noting that there had been a number of recent European judgments on this issue. However, “once that to date, there do not appear to have been any legal criteria drafted to cater for a situation like this where there is the revision of punishment given to the accused, this court sees fit to make a provision to address this shortcoming in the law.”

To this end it ordered that after Schembri served 25 years of his sentence, his case would be referred to the Parole Board.

The appeal was declined and the sentence confirmed in its entirety, with the added benefit of the legal mechanism of revision by the Parole Board after 25 years. Should this not be possible, he should still benefit from measures and criteria established from time to time by the Constitutional Court that would permit him to request a revision of punishment in the right circumstances, the court said.