AKOM v. THE STATE
1966
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- OLLENNU
- AKAINYAH
- LASSEY JJ.S.C
Areas of Law
- Criminal Law and Procedure
- Evidence Law
1966
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
Kwasi Akom was originally convicted of murder for the killing of his aunt, Akua Akyia. He admitted to causing the injury but claimed that the act was accidental due to confusion during an assault upon him. The appellate court found several significant errors in the trial judge's directions to the jury, including misdirections on the distinctions between murder and manslaughter and improper instructions on the defenses of provocation, self-defense, and accident. The court concluded that these errors could have led to a substantial miscarriage of justice. Consequently, the murder conviction was quashed, and the conviction was substituted with manslaughter, leading to a revised sentence of seven years' imprisonment with hard labor.
JUDGMENT OF LASSEY J.S.C.
Lassey J.S.C. delivered the judgment of the court. On 12 November 1964 the appellant, Kwasi Akom, was found guilty of the offence of the murder of one Akua Akyia on 12 May 1964 at Danso village in Ashanti after a trial before Attoh J. and a jury in the High Court, Kumasi. From this conviction the appellant has appealed to this court.
After hearing the whole of the evidence and listening carefully to the judge's summing-up the jury had no difficulty in coming to the unanimous verdict that the appellant was guilty of the murder complained of and charged. However, in this court the summing-up of the trial judge has been impeached on the ground that it contained several misdirections or non-directions the cumulative effect of which was that it caused considerable confusion in the minds of the jury, and consequently led to or resulted in a substantial miscarriage of justice.
[p.456]
The recorded evidence led at the trial showed clearly that it was the appellant who inflicted the bodily injury which eventually caused the death of the deceased; the appellant himself admitted that fact both in his statement made to the police, exhibit C, and in his evidence given on oath at the trial.
The prosecution established by evidence that on Wednesday 13 May 1964 the appellant, the deceased Akua Akyia and other people, including some of the prosecution witnesses who gave evidence at the trial, attended the performance of the funeral ceremony for one Afua Atta who had died earlier; after the funeral celebration, the deceased, together with some of the prosecution witnesses herein, retired to the house of one Kwame Krah, the prosecution's third witness, to listen to the music of an accordion instrument played by the said third witness for the prosecution in his house at the village; the evidence was that the appellant also went to the third witness for the prosecution's house to listen to and enjoy the accordion music, and sat nearest to where the deceased Akua Akyia had sat on a verandah in the said third witness for the prosecution's house. Altogether it was stated on the evidence that there were about ten people who had assembled in the third witness for the prosecution's house for the purpose of enjoying the music from his accordion instrument. While the guests, among whom were the appellant and the deceased, were all seated and enjoying the tunes flowing from the third witness for the prosecution's instrument, suddenly and without any pro