THE STATE v. LOBI

JUDGMENT OF ADUMUA-BOSSMAN J.S.C.

Adumua-Bossman, J.S.C. delivered the judgment of the court. [His lordship narrated the facts and continued:] After what can be described as the most favourable summing-up in favour of the appellant, in the course of which the learned judge said, inter alia, that: "For instance, you have to consider whether a sane person in the circumstances would run amuck and butcher so many defenceless women and children; if you think not, then your verdict should be guilty, but insane", the jury rejected the appellant's defence of insanity or insane delusion; and it is their finding that the appellant was sane at the time of commission of the act which is now challenged as being unreasonable and incapable of support having regard to the evidence.

After the most anxious and careful examination and consideration of all the evidence, however, we are of the opinion that the jury had good and sufficient justification for coming to the conclusion which they did.

[p.697]

In this respect, on the appellant's own statement to the police and his explanation to the court, he cannot be said not to have known the nature or quality of the acts, at the time he was doing them, for it is clear, as he himself explained, that he knew he was destroying human life because his brothers or companions were either reported or supposed to have been killed. But most important and significant perhaps is the circumstance deposed to by Kwasi Nyamekye, third prosecution witness, that he conversed quite rationally with the appellant in the bush and that the appellant was rational enough, when he (Nyamekye) threatened to shoot him down if he did not throw down his cutlass and surrender.

Having regard to the requirements of section 27 of the Criminal Code, 1960,1 which is identical in terms with section 52 of the former Criminal Code, Cap. 92 providing that a person accused of murder may be entitled to the special verdict of guilty but insane only:

“(a) if he was prevented, by reason of . . . any mental derangement or disease affecting the mind, from knowing the nature or consequences of the act in respect of which he is accused; or

(b) if he did the act in respect of which he is accused under the influence of an insane delusion of such a nature as to render him, in the opinion of the jury or of the court, an unfit subject for punishment”,

it does not seem that the appellant's case is brought within the requirements of the law. Looking at the matter in the li