DOGO DAGARTI vs. THE STATE [1964]DLSC1895

Date	1964-12-04
Suit No.
Citation No.	[1964]DLSC1895

OLLENNU JSC

ACOLATSE JSC

SIRIBOE J.S.C.

W. ADUMUA-BOSSMAN FOR THE APPELLANT.

J.N. K. TAYLOR SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY FOR THE RESPONDENT.

[1964]DLSC1895
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													<main id="main" class="content" style="min-height: 60rem" >DOGO DAGARTI<o:p></o:p>&nbsp;vs. <o:p></o:p>THE STATE <o:p></o:p>[SUPREME COURT]<o:p></o:p>[1964] GLR 653<o:p></o:p><div style="mso-element:para-border-div;border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.5pt;
padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in">

DATE:
4 DECEMBER 1964.<o:p></o:p>

</div>COUNSEL:&nbsp;&nbsp; <o:p></o:p><div style="mso-element:para-border-div;border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.5pt;
padding:0in 0in 0in 0in">

W. ADUMUA-BOSSMAN FOR THE APPELLANT.<o:p></o:p>

J.N. K. TAYLOR, SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY, FOR THE
RESPONDENT.<o:p></o:p>

</div>CORAM:
<o:p></o:p><div style="mso-element:para-border-div;border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.5pt;
padding:0in 0in 0in 0in">

OLLENNU, ACOLATSE AND SIRIBOE JJ.S.C.<o:p></o:p>

</div><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>JUDGMENT OF OLLENNU J.S.C.<o:p></o:p>Ollennu
J.S.C. delivered the judgment of the court. The appellant was found guilty by a
jury of the murder of his wife one Amma Dagarti; he was accordingly convicted,
and the only sentence allowed by law was passed upon him. He appealed against
his conviction on two main grounds, namely: (1) the defence case of an absence
of intention to kill (by reason of epilepsy) was not adequately put to the
jury; and (2) there was a misdirection to the jury as to the unlawful nature of
the harm done to the deceased.<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>The
incidents which led to the proceedings occurred in the morning of 31 July 1963,
between 8.00 and 8.30 o’clock, at a village called Bonsa, near Tarkwa. The
appellant and his said wife had lodged with some countrymen of his in the said village.
The appellant was in a room given to them by their host, and the wife was in
the kitchen doing some cooking in the company of two other women. At a certain
stage of the cooking the deceased left the other women to the room to fetch
something she needed to put into her soup. Very soon thereafter she was heard
shouting, “I am being killed! I am being killed!” The two women in the kitchen
rushed to the door of the room but found it locked; they thereupon raised an
alarm and many people came to the house; when the door was opened the appellant
was found standing in the room and holding a knife, and the deceased was found
lying dead on a mat on the floor with a number of fresh wounds on her,
bleeding; the appellant then dropped the knife, and fell to the ground; he was
caught and tied up, and later handed over to police.<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>In a
statement he made to the police when he was charged with the offence, the
appellant said inter alia, “I do not know that my wife Amaba Dagarti was dead.
I do not know the one who killed her. I believe that it was God who killed
her.” The appellant, in his defence at his trial, repeated what he had told the
police, namely, that he did not know that the wife was dead, and did not know
the cause of her death; and added that he used to have certain epileptic fits,
and upon recovery he would have no recollection of anything that he did during
the period of the attack.<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>Arguing
the first ground of appeal, learned counsel for the appellant submitted that
the defence set up by the appellant was automatism rendering him incapable of
forming intent as defined in section 11 of the Criminal Code, 196011; and
therefore the trial judge erred in directing the jury that, “neither automaton
nor hysterical amnesia was a defence in this country to a charge of murder.”<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>It is
true that the learned trial judge’s statement of the law that the defence of
automatism is not applicable to this country is too wide, for although
automatism is not stated in our law to be a defence to crime, yet there are
cases where an act may be done by a person under automatism in such a situation
that in law the act cannot be said to be the act of the person who did it; an
example of this is given in the headnote of Bratty v. Attorney-General for
Northern Ireland22: as “a blow on the head received by the prisoner after which
he acted without being conscious of what he was doing or a condition of
sleepwalking.” See also Hill v. Baxter,33 and Archbold Pleading, Evidence and
Practice in Criminal Cases (35th ed.), p. 19, para. 41. In such a case it would
be correct to say, as counsel submitted, that although the physical act causing
the event is that of the person charged with it, yet in law, it will be an act
done without intent; a more correct statement is that in law such an act is not
the voluntary act of the person who did it.<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>Where a
defendant pleads that the act complained of was done in a state of automatism
he should be able to show some evidence either coming from the prosecution or
from the defence which could be put to the jury and from which the jury could
reasonably infer that the act was don</main>