KETSIAWAH vs. THE STATE [1965]DLSC1815

Date	1965-06-21
Suit No.
Citation No.	[1965]DLSC1815

OLLENNU JSC

ACOLATSE JSC

APALOO J.S.C.

HEWARD-MILLS FOR THE APPELLANT.

GYEKE-DAKO SENIOR STATE ATTORNEY FOR THE RESPONDENT.

[1965]DLSC1815
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													<main id="main" class="content" style="min-height: 60rem" >KETSIAWAH <o:p></o:p>vs. <o:p></o:p>THE STATE <o:p></o:p>[SUPREME COURT]<o:p></o:p>[1965] GLR 483<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:
21 JUNE 1965.<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">

HEWARD-MILLS FOR THE APPELLANT.<o:p></o:p>

GYEKE-DAKO, 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 APALOO 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 convicted of
murder by the High Court, Sekondi, upon the verdict of a jury. The victim of
the crime, one Ekua Ampomah, was the wife of the appellant but had been
divorced by him about eighteen months prior to the day of the offence. The main
ground of appeal argued by counsel is that the learned trial judge misdirected
the jury by failing to direct them to return the special verdict provided in
section 28 (3) of the Criminal Code, 1960.1<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>On the
fateful day, the appellant who said he was leaving the village where he had
lived with the deceased to return to his own village, invited the deceased to
go with him to a farm; he said he was going to uproot some yams he had planted,
and wanted the woman to know the quantity he would leave on the farm. The two
of them were seen together leaving the village, and that was the last time that
any of the witnesses for the prosecution saw the deceased alive. When evening
came and the two persons had not returned home, a search party was organised by
the villagers to look for them, but without success. The search was resumed the
next morning, and in the bush the dead body of the woman was discovered covered
with palm leaves. About six days later, the appellant was found in the night
near another village in the neighbourhood, and was then arrested and handed to
the police.<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>The case
for the prosecution depended entirely upon a statement which the appellant made
to the police who charged him with the offence, he being the only eye-witness
to the incident. The evidence given by the appellant at his trial is in many
respects a repetition of his statement to the police. The relevant portion of
that statement is that when going to the farm, he, unknown to the woman, took with
him a bottle of akpeteshie, and kept on drinking it at intervals when the woman
could not notice him; he drank the last bit just before they were due to leave
the farm. That done, he said, he appealed to the woman for reconciliation and
re-marriage, but the woman replied with abuses, saying, among other things:
“Fool, you have no sense when you came to this place you did not bring any land
with you, because of the land you now cannot return to your home-town. Get away
with your foolishness.” The appellant said that by then he had become totally
drunk; he continued: “When the abuses continued I felt it and I had to cut her
with the cutlass I was holding. Because I was drunk I had to sleep in the bush,
I did not know where I slept.”<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>The
injuries which the appellant inflicted on his victim to cause her death were
ghastly and barbarous; they were described by the medical officer who held the
post-mortem on the body as follows:<o:p></o:p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.0pt;
margin-left:.5in;text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;border:none;mso-padding-alt:
31.0pt 31.0pt 31.0pt 31.0pt;mso-border-shadow:yes">“numerous
deep sharp lacerations covering the face and the skull, and varying from 8” to
3” in length. There was another deep laceration at the back of the left elbow.
This might have resulted from a sharp long instrument, and were not
self-inflicted.”<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>The first
ground argued in the appeal was that the trial judge erred in admitting in
evidence the statement which the appellant made to the police when he was
charged with the offence and cautioned. Counsel submitted that the statement in
question is not voluntary, because the appellant is shown to have made it upon
compulsion. He submitted that in those circumstances it was the duty of the
trial judge to have rejected the statement, even, though at the trial counsel
for the defence did not raise any objection to its admission. This submission
of counsel is based upon one sentence in the evidence-in-chief of the
thirteenth prosecution witness, an independent person who was invited by the
police to be present to hear the statement the appellant made and to witness
it. The evidence so relied upon is the penultimate sentence in the witness’s evidence-in-chief;
it is as follows: “The accused was coaxed to make the statement.” Counsel
submitted that the court is bound by the record, and the only interpretation of
the words “was coaxed,” used by the witness is that the appellant did not make
the statement voluntarily, and that he mad</main>