KONO vs. THE STATE [1965]DLSC1820

Date	1965-03-05
Suit No.
Citation No.	[1965]DLSC1820

MILLS-ODOI JSC

OLLENNU JSC

BRUCE-LYLE J.S.C.

HUTCHFUL FOR THE APPELLANT.

K. A. SEKYI STATE ATTORNEY FOR THE RESPONDENT.

[1965]DLSC1820
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													<main id="main" class="content" style="min-height: 60rem" >KONO<o:p></o:p>&nbsp;vs. <o:p></o:p>THE STATE <o:p></o:p>[SUPREME COURT]<o:p></o:p>[1965] GLR 112<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:
5 MARCH 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">

HUTCHFUL FOR THE APPELLANT.<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">

MILLS-ODOI, OLLENNU AND BRUCE-LYLE
JJ.S.C.<o:p></o:p>

</div><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>JUDGMENT OF BRUCE-LYLE J.S.C.<o:p></o:p>Bruce-Lyle
J.S.C. delivered the judgment of the court. This is an appeal from a conviction
for murder at the Criminal Session of the High Court held at Accra on 8 June
1964.<o:p></o:p>The case
for the prosecution is that the appellant and his wife, the deceased, lived in
the same village but that after a quarrel the deceased left the village and
went to stay in another nearby village called Kobokobo, about three miles away,
in the house of one Kwame Atta, the third prosecution witness. The appellant
used to visit his wife at her village and sometimes spent the night with her.
On Sunday evening, 13 September 1963, the appellant visited the deceased, and
after exchanging greetings with the third prosecution witness entered the
deceased’s room. In the room, according to the third prosecution witness, the
appellant attempted to have sexual intercourse with the deceased but she
refused. At this stage the third prosecution witness left for the odikro’s
house to take part in an arbitration, leaving behind his two wives, Akua Buor
the sixth prosecution witness and Akua Ansah the tenth prosecution witness.
According to these witnesses they heard the appellant and the deceased
quarrelling about the fact that the appellant had failed to provide the
deceased with a cover-cloth and while this quarrel was on the sixth and tenth
prosecution witnesses also left the house to attend the arbitration at the
odikro’s house. According to the third prosecution witness when the appellant
came to his house the appellant was wearing a cover-cloth of yellowish colour.
In the night the second prosecution witness, Kwame Asare, who lived in a house,
about 50 yards from the third prosecution witness’s house, heard a child crying
from the direction of the third prosecution witness’s house and as a result
went to the third prosecution witness’s house, entered the deceased’s room and
inquired why the child had been crying; he had no reply and so raised his
lantern and saw the deceased lying on a mattress and rolling from one side of
the mattress to the other with cutlass wounds on her. On seeing the condition
of the deceased, the second prosecution witness inquired from her as to who had
inflicted the wounds on her and she called the name of the appellant. The
second prosecution witness further said in evidence that when the deceased
mentioned the name of the appellant she also said that she was dying. The
second prosecution witness then raised an alarm and many people, including the
chief of the village, came to the scene. On the instructions of the chief he
went and reported the matter to the police sergeant at Adukrom; on the strength
of what he told the sergeant they went to the appellant’s village. The sergeant
then knocked on the door of the appellant and when the appellant opened the
door, the sergeant “then confronted him with the charge of murdering his wife”
but the appellant “stood shivering and made no statement.” The sergeant found
in the appellant’s room a man’s wet cover-cloth, and a man’s wet “pants” hung
on a rope to dry, and a cutlass with a wet handle the blade of which was dry.<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>On the
same Sunday evening at about 9 p.m., the ninth prosecution witness Kwadjo Sefa,
who also lived in the same Kobokobo village, was returning from Adebong village
when he saw the appellant running towards him. He found that the appellant had
his covercloth folded and tucked under his left armpit and was holding a
cutlass in his right hand. This witness stopped the appellant and asked him why
he was running very fast and the appellant replied that he was going to his
village. This witness knew the appellant very well and also flashed his torch
light which he then had on the appellant. The sixth and tenth prosecution
witnesses, wives of the third prosecution witness, were able to identify the
cover-cloth, exhibit C, as the cloth the appellant had on when he visited the
deceased on the material and fateful night.<o:p></o:p><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>When the
appellant was charged he volunteered a statement to the police in which he
admitted that he lived with the deceased in his village for some time but later
the deceased refused to marry him any longer and therefore left and went to
stay in Kobokobo village but denied that he ever visited Kobokobo village on
the material Sunday. He also said that on the fateful Sunday at 3 p.m. he
visited a brother at Lakpa village, about one-and-a-half miles from his
village, and returned to his village at 4 p.m. and washed his cover-cloth and
underwear and remained in his village and never went out in the evening; that
whilst in the house one Whakyi visited him. At the trial the appellant
substantially adhered to this line of defence of alibi and denied owning the
cutlass, cover-cloth and the pair of under-pants tendered as exhibits.<o:p></o:p>After an
exhaustive summing-up of the facts and the law by the trial judge the jury
returned a unanimous verdict of guilty of murder and the appellant was duly
sentenced to death. Against this verdict the appellant has appealed to this
court on the following grounds:<o:p></o</main>