KOROMA V, R [1966] CR. APP 23/66 The appellant appealed against his conviction for murder on the grounds that the trial judge misdirected the jury on his summing up with regard to his defence of death by misadventure and that the judge did not direct the jury that ifbrhey had any reasonable doubt as to the accused guilt, they should acquit, ISSUE: Did the trial judge err in summing up by not directing the jury on the accused defence and also on the burden and standard of proof? Bankole Jones : “failure to leave the dedencr of death by misadventure to the jury was fatal. Also, the learned trial judge in his summing up should have told the jury to acquit if they had reasonable doubt of the accused guilt,KARGIBO V. R [1968-69] ALR S.L. 354 The appellant was convicted for murder after Fighting with his brother over the ownership of a cup, While the two men were Fighting, the deceased struck the appellant who who not retaliate and tried to leave but was knocked to the ground, Whe struggling, the appellant grab a machete nearby and struck the deceased inflicting injuries from which he died, The appellant admitted to the Fight but denied that he had intention to kill his brother, The trial judge in summing up read passages from a text book on the law of provocation and self defence without applying them to the facts, He also failed to direct the jury on the consequences the use of excessive force in self defence. The appellant was convicted of murder by a unanimous verdict. He appealed, ISSUES: the appellant appealed on the Following grounds:,O That the state counsel caused prejudice to the appellant by suggesting in his cross examination a motive which had not been proved by the prosecution O The trial judge failed to direct the jury adequately on the defence of provocation O The judge did not give the proper directions with regards to the right of self dedence, HELD His appeal was upheld, TAMIBIAH JJ A, held that thr trial judge failed to tell the jury how to apply the law to the facts and also did not direct thr jury properly on the defence of self defence and that they should return a verdict of manslaughter if they were sure that the accused acted with sudden fright during the course of which the accused killed the deceased and that they should acquit if the accused killed his brother by pure accident, If the jury had been properlydirected, the inky reasonable verdict they would have returned would have been manslaughter KHAZALI AND ORS V, THE STATE (1974-82) 1 SLIBALR FACTS - Four appellants entered into an agreement with Sunday Kargbo to sell the latter’s wife to the first appellant. Subsequently, Sunday Kargbo took his wife to the village where she and her children were killed by the second, third and fourth appellants while Sunday Kagbo and the first appellant stood by to watch, Upon conviction for murder of Sunday Kargbo and the four appellants, two appealed. ISSUES - 1, Whether the judge should have directed that it was desirable for the jury to look for corroboration of PW%’s evidence before convicting, as he was the onlymaterial witness, 2, As PW was the only witness who gave evidence incriminating the appellants and was himself an accomplice whether the judge’s direction to th e jury on the law relating to accomplices was defective, HELD -Where no statutory provision applies directing the need for corroboration, and the evidence adduced on behalf of the prosecution consists of the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice, the judge should leave the case to the jury after giving them the necessary caution, STATE V IRENE YOUNG & ORS The defendants were charged with 13 counts of falsification of accounts under the falsification of accounts act 1875 and larceny by a servant under the Larceny Act 19416, Young was found guilty at trial of fourcharges and was sentenced to two years imprisonment on each such count with the sentences to run concurrently, The other accused Joseph Koroma was found guilty on 5 charges and sentenced to 2 years imprisonment for each count to run concurrently, They appealed to the court of appeal against there respective sentences on the ground that the evidence adduced cannot constitute proof of any of the offenses charged and they the verdict was unreasonable and cannot be supported having regard to the evidence, The conviction of Irene Young was quashed while those of the other two accused were affirmed, The AG appealed to the Supreme courts asking inter alia: O Whether in law persons named and charged with an accused person on thesame indictment can be regarded as innocent agents of that person The respondent Joseph Koroma sought special leave to appeal his convictions asking inter alia: O Whether circumstantial evidence against one accused can be used against another accused charged in the same indictment Their convictions were........... In SENESIE LUSENI -V- THE STATE CR.App.4/78 the Appellant was charged with six counts for committing the offence of manslaughter and found guilty on all counts of reckless—driving, Learned counset for the Appellant complained that what Learned Trial Judge apparently did in his summing up was to call out the name of each witness and then proceed to read out what the witness said from the witnessbox and that he did the same when it came to the Defence, KEN DURING J A had this to say A Judge is expected to sum up the evidence before the court and make proper analysis of the evidence and relate the evidence to the law, Reading merely, the evidence of the witness of the Prosecution and evidence of the Appellant could .not be a proper direction to the jury” KEN DURING J A went on to state that “In his summing up, all the Learned Trial Judge did was to read out .passages from Text books and Acts of Parliament. He failed to apply the law which was his duty, There should be « proper analysis of the evidence, The Court of Appeal unanimously held, In the case of ALPHA BANGURA, SATTY DUMBUYA, ISATU GBLA (suing by Alpha Ghla her father and next friend) V YAYAHLAMIN AND IBRAHIM SORIE CIV/APP 30/81 CA (UNREPORTED), it was held that in a claim for personal injuries, the plaintiff must state in their statement of claim their ages or date of birth, or lead evidence to that effect. In determining which of the parties is affirming, it is not so much the grammatical language of pleadings which is to be considered, but the substance and effects of it, The judge should consider what the real fact in issue in that he misdirected the jury on the defence of self defence. The court of appeal quashed the conviction. SEISAY & SIAFFA v R. reported in 1967-68 African Law Reports Sierra Leone Series at page 323 it was held that even if an accused person is lying, that does not necessarily mean that he is guilty or that he may be convicted without more-ado, The burden remains on the prosecution to prove his guiltyand it is the judge's duty to make this clear to the jury, In SANNOH V THE STATE CRIM APP 11/77, the Sierra Leone CA comprising Ken During, Syndney Warne and ShekuKutubu JJA (as they then were), the appellant was convicted to death and sentenced to death. The main issue in ha appeal against conviction was whether the trial judge had adequately directed the jury on the ingredients of manslaughter, The appellant'sdefenses to the murder charge were provocation and self-defence, It was held that the Judge's summing up was inadequate I how he death with manslaughter and the defence of provocation. The verdict of murder was quashed and substituted with the verdict of manslaughter, Isatta Turay - The State Cr. App.11/44 CAOn the 10th of March, 1993, the Appellant and one Digha who was the deceased's relative had some argument which culminated in the Appellant using bad language against Digha, By then Appellant was eating mango with a knife, The deceased met the Appellant while the Appellant was on her: way home and asked her why she was using bad language during the month of fasting, The Appellant asked the deceased to mind his own business and they went into grips. It was part of the prosecution's case that the deceased was well nourished male and aged 18 and the Appellant was 16 years old, There was no evidence as to who first attacked but the evidence is clear that whilst the deceased & the appellant went into grips, the Appellant's head was under the armpit of the deceased, The deceased ‘sweating the Appellant and at the sametime hitting her on the head for about five minutes, It was during that time that the deceased shouted that the Appellant had stabbed him with blood 'coming' from the deceased's side, he was eventually taken to the Connnaught Hospital for treatment where he died on 11th March, 1993, (Here the evidential burden was on the accused but once this has been satisfied then the legal burden shifts to the prosecution), The Appellant was convicted in the High Court and appealed to the Court of Appeal. One of the grounds was that there was no evidence at all, or no evidence beyond reasonable doubt that the accused intentionally murdered the deceased, It was also argued that the trial judge erred in law and in fact, SAHR M'BAY & OTHERS V THE STATE CRIM APP 41/84, In this case, Parliamentary byelection was held in Kono District in 1972 to Fill the vacancy for « Paramount Chief MP for Kono District, Two candidates, PC MN Tortor and PC Songurewah, contested the election, The appellants were supporters of PC Songuibrewah and the deceased was supporter of PC Tortor, On the 5th September, 1972, the appellants went out campaigning and the deceased also went out campaigning in the company of others, Early in dy a clash took place between the supporters of the two candidates at Wajama Village in which the appelants and the deceased were involved, According to the prosecution, the 1st appellant ordered that the deceased be apprehended and there upon the 2nd and 3rd appellant got hold of the deceased and the 1st appellants hit him on the head with an iron bar, The deceased fell on the ground, The police were invited and when they arrived, they found thedeceased on the ground with a wound on his head, The appellant was also found on the ground ahout 40 feet away with a wound on his head, According to medical examination, both the 1st appellant and the decased had suffered serious injuries, THE STATE VS, GMT KAIKAI & OTHERS (Treason case), By the testimony of the fits accused, GMT Kaikai, he made an unsworn statement against the first Vice president, FM, Minah and Justice Kutubu gave a ruling and FM, Minah was convicted, The learned Justice Kutubu by then mentioned the principle stated above but said however that other evidence had emerged, so he convicted FM.Minah, The jury must however be reminded that although an unsworn statement is not evidence and has not been tested in cross-examination, they can attach to it as much weight as they think fit,Persons called as witnesses pursuant to subpoena ducestecum(meaning you come to court and produce a document) for the sole purpose of producing a document need not be sworn if there is another witness who van testify the document, such a person however, ex hypothesis not giving oral evidence, GABRIEL MOHAMED TENNYSON (GMT) KAIKAI AND THIRTEEN OTHERS V, THE STATE (198%) FACTS - In June 1987, the appellants were tried in the High Court on four count indictment of treason, misprison of treason and murder, The jury returned unanimous verdicts of guilty as charged in respect of all the accused, The death sentence was passed on the first 16 accused, while the 17th and 18th accused were sentenced to terms of imprisonment of 4 and 7 years respectively, All 18 appealed to the Court of Appeal against their convictionon various grounds, Four of the appellants convicted of treason were acquitted on appeal, but the Court of Appeal dismissed all the other appeals, The remaining 14 appellants appealed to the Supreme Court and contended variously: ISSUES - 1, The trial judge had misdirected the jury in relation to the circumstantial evidence on which the murder convictions were based, 2, In relation to the 5th and 12th appellants, that hearsay evidence was wrongly admitted and that their alibi defence was not properly considered, 3, That the trial judge misdirected the jury in relation to accomplice evidence, 4, That alleged statements made by suspects at the scene of the crime were improper and inadmissible, 5, That the unsworn statement of the first appellant did not constitute evidence againstthe 5th appellant and should not have been admitted, 6, That the tape recording of the 1st appellant was improperly admitted into evidence and prejudiced his trial, 7. That the trial judge’s summing up did not fairly put the case of the defence to the jury and was biased, HELD - 1, There is no rule that, where the prosecution case is based on circumstantial evidence the judge must, as a matter of law, give a further direction that the jury must convict unless they are satisfied that the facts proved are not only consistent with the guilt of the accused, but also as to be inconsistent with any other reasonable conclusion, The proper direction to be given in all criminal trials is direct or circumstantial, is proof beyond reasonable doubt. 2, Disregarding the piece of hearsayevidence of DW20, there was other evidence left to the jury for consideration on right direction, in determining the guilt or otherwise of the appellants, The jury were properly directed on that evidence and would have arrived at the same verdict evidence had not been admitted, 3. In law, no duty is imposed on an accused to prove his alibi although nothing stops him from calling witnesses to buttress such alibi if he chooses, The jury must be told this in clear terms and that if an alibi fails the matter does not end there, The overall burden of proving the guilt of the accused lies on the prosecution, The standard of proof required of the prosecution is proof beyond reasonable doubt. 4, The uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice is admissible in law; but where an accomplice gives evidence for the prosecution, it is the duty of the judge towarn the jury that although they may convict on his evidence, it is dangerous to do so unless it is corroborated, This rule, although a rule of practice, has now become a rule of law, It is for the judge to decide whether there is any evidence to show that a witness can be regarded as an accomplice, and it is for the jury to determine whether the witness is in fact an accomplice, 5, It is a recognized and universal principle of law that, whereas a statement made in the absence of the accused person hy a co- defendant cannot be evidence in the course of a joint trial, then his sworn evidence becomes evidence for all purposes in the case including that of being evidence against the accused person. 6, For a tape recording to be admitted into evidence, the accuracy of the tape recording must be proved, the voice must be properly identified, the evidence must be relevantand the recording must come from proper custody, 7. The court is not entitled to substitute its view for that of the jury, While there was misdirection in the trial judge’s summoning- up, there was ample evidence against the appellants on which the jury could convict on all counts. There was here no miscarriage of justice and the appeals against convictions and sentence were therefore dismissed,