15 4(2) of the Convention, as it does not confine the application of the death penalty to the most serious crimes.30 In the present case, Mr. DaCosta Cadogan was sentenced to death pursuant to Section 2 of OAPA. The Court sees no reason to depart from its previous jurisprudence, and therefore finds that the application of Section 2 of OAPA to Mr. DaCosta Cadogan resulted in a violation of Article 4(2) of the Convention to his detriment. A.2) The arbitrariness of the mandatory death penalty 53. This Tribunal has previously held that a lawfully sanctioned mandatory sentence of death may be arbitrary where the law fails to distinguish the possibility of different degrees of culpability of the offender and fails to individually consider the particular circumstances of the crime.31 With regard to Section 2 of OAPA, the Court has previously found that it lawfully sanctions the death penalty as the one and only possible sentence for the crime of murder,32 and that the law does not allow the imposition of a lesser sentence in consideration of the particular characteristics of the crime or the participation and degree of culpability of the defendant.33 54. In this regard, the Court has previously held that to consider all persons responsible for murder as deserving of the death penalty is to “trea[t] all persons convicted of a designated offense not as uniquely individual human beings, but as members of a faceless, undifferentiated mass to be subjected to the blind infliction of the death penalty.”34 55. The strict observation of certain due process rights and procedures is essential in evaluating whether the death penalty has been imposed arbitrarily.35 In accordance with the law in Barbados, the availability of statutory and common law defenses and exceptions for defendants in death penalty cases are relevant only for the determination of the guilt or innocence of the accused, not for the determination of the appropriate punishment that should be imposed once a person has been convicted. That is, a defendant in a capital punishment case may attempt to escape a guilty verdict by claiming certain common law 30 Cf. Case of Boyce et al., supra note 20, para. 55. 31 Cf. Case of Boyce et al., supra note 20, para. 57. 32 The definition of murder is not provided in any written law, as it remains a common law offense, and it is understood that “[m]urder is committed where a person of sound mind and the age of discretion unlawfully kills any reasonable creature in being under the Queen’s peace with malice aforethought either expressed by that person or implied by law, so that the party wounded or hurt dies of that wound or hurt within a year and a day of same.” Cf. Case of Boyce et al., supra note 20, footnote 52. 33 Cf. Case of Boyce et al., supra note 20, para. 57. 34 Cf. Case of Hilaire, Constantine, and Benjamin et al., supra note 22, para. 105, and Case of Boyce et al., supra note 20, para. 58, citing Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 304 (1976). The Supreme Court of the United States of America held that the mandatory death penalty constituted a violation of the due process guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment and the right to not be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment of the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. The Court also indicated that the imposition of the death penalty generally necessitates a consideration of the relevant facets of the character and record of the individual offender and the circumstances of the particular offence. 35 Cf. Case of Boyce et al., supra note 20, para. 59. In Advisory Opinion OC-16/99, the Court made it clear that when due process guarantees are affected, the “imposition of the death penalty is a violation of the right not to be ‘arbitrarily’ deprived of one's life, in the terms of the relevant provisions of the human rights treaties (e.g. The American Convention on Human Rights, Article 4 […]) with the juridical consequences inherent in a violation of this nature, i.e., those pertaining to the international responsibility of the State and the duty to make reparations.” Cf. The Right to Information on Consular Assistance in the Framework of the Guarantees of the Due Process of Law, supra note 24, para. 137.