JUDGMENT OF OLLENNU J.A.
Ollennu J.A. delivered the judgment of the court. The appellant was convicted by the High Court, Sunyani, of the offence of murder. Against that conviction he appealed to this court on a number of grounds, two only of which were argued; these are:
"(1) The presiding judge misdirected the jury by failing to direct that they were entitled to find the appellant guilty of manslaughter if they were of the opinion that he was so intoxicated as not to have the necessary intent as to make him guilty of murder or murder but insane.
(2) The summing-up notes are not detailed enough and as such it has made it difficult to determine whether justice was not only done but was manifestly seen to be done."
The facts relied upon by the prosecution are briefly as follows: The appellant, his wife, the first prosecution witness and his son, the eighth prosecution witness lived in a village called Dandwa, near Nkoranza. On the day of the incident his wife, the first prosecution witness, left the village for Akropong a nearby village of members of her family to attend the celebration of funeral rites of her sister who had died a few days before. The appellant had, on the previous [p.734] day, indicated his disapproval of his wife going, and so did not respond when the wife bade him good-bye when she was leaving in the morning. At about mid-day when his son, the eighth prosecution witness, returned from school he met the appellant sharpening his cutlass. In reply to the boy the appellant said he was sharpening the cutlass for use on his onion farm. He did not however go to the farm that afternoon. The eighth prosecution witness went back to school and when he returned home at about 5.30 p.m. the appellant caused him to buy 1s. 6d. worth of akpeteshie on two separate occasions; the appellant consumed the whole of the first lot; he also drank a portion of the second lot, and went out with what was left.
In the evening of that day, at about 7 p.m. the appellant travelled to the wife's village; as he entered he walked straight to the wife and began to cut her up with a cutlass; the wife raised an alarm. The second prosecution witness, a sister of the appellant's wife, seeing this also raised alarm and started running away; the appellant rushed on her too and gave her some cuts with the cutlass. The deceased, a brother of the appellant's wife, walked up to the appellant and said to him, "Brother-in-law, why?" Thereupon the appellant turned upon him, inf
