KWASI KUMA v. THE REPUBLIC

Apaloo J.A. delivered the majority opinion in an appeal from the High Court at Sunyani, where the appellant had been convicted by a jury of murdering fetish priest Kwadjo Francis and sentenced to death. Francis was shot by pellets from two rapid gunshots while performing fetish rites; no one saw the shooter. At dawn, the appellant surrendered at the Goaso police station with a double-barrelled gun and cartridges, confessing to shooting Francis the previous evening. He had previously sought the deceased’s fetish for a cure to an illness, and his post-offence statement and conduct appeared odd. Six months after the offense, Dr. Augustine Diji diagnosed catatonic schizophrenia, though the onset time was indeterminate. The trial judge correctly stated the preponderance standard for insanity but, the majority held, failed to direct the jury to evaluate the totality of odd contemporaneous conduct and subsequent medical evidence in assessing insanity, likely affecting the verdict. The Court of Appeal set aside the murder conviction and substituted a special verdict of guilty but insane, ordering detention in the Mental Hospital until the President’s pleasure. Azu Crabbe J.A. dissented, asserting the summing-up caused no substantial miscarriage of justice.