IGNATIUS HOWE v. THE REPUBLIC

JUDGMENT

AKAMBA, JSC

The Appellant was charged before the High Court, Cape Coast with the offence of Robbery. He was convicted on 21st May 2007 and sentenced to a term of forty-five (45) years imprisonment with hard labour. He appealed to the Court of Appeal against his conviction and sentence. The appellate court on 2nd December 2007 dismissed the appeal. He has appealed to this court on as many as eight grounds. These are:

(I) Their Lordships of the Court of Appeal erred in law in refusing to apply the principle on identification in the case of Karim v The Republic (2003-2004) 2 SCGLR 812 to the facts of the case.

(II) Their Lordships of the Court of Appeal erred in holding that the identification parade was not flawed.

(III) The judgment and conviction cannot be supported having regard to the evidence on record.

(IV) The Court of Appeal misdirected itself when it speculated that the witnesses were able to identify the accused person ‘maybe the mask fell off his face’ and so occasioned a miscarriage of justice.

(V) The sentence of 45 years affirmed by the Court of Appeal was excessive.

(VI) The learned judges of the Court of Appeal erred when they held that the prosecution met the standard of proof in this case.

(VII) The learned judges of the Court of Appeal erred in not upholding the submission of no case, which had been dismissed by the trial judge.

(VIII) The Court of Appeal erred in finding that the appellant was among the robbers

In this court the appellant argued grounds (i), (iii), (vi) and (viii) together. We would include ground (ii) to this list because it impugns the Court of Appeal’s determination on the identification parade as flawed. These grounds together raise for consideration whether the prosecution by their evidence sufficiently and adequately identified the appellant as one of the robbers and also met the evidential burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt on the issue of identity. We would equally determine these grounds together. The appellant placed a great deal of premium on the case of Karim v The Repulic 2003-2004 SCGLR 812. In that case the issue that came up for determination pertained to in-dock identification which the court deprecated as generally undesirable. However evidence of in-dock identification is not inadmissible but raises issues of what weight to be attached or accorded such evidence. We think in all fairness that the appellant counsel’s reliance on the Karim case is unhelpful since we are not called