The full case as requested 👇

🏾👇🏾

*R v Magata s/o Kachehakana*

[1957] 1 EA 330(HCU)
Division: HM High Court for
Uganda at Kampala
Date of judgment: 24 August
1957
Case Number: 220/1957
Before: Lyon J
Sourced by: LawAfrica
[1] Criminal law – Murder –
Insanity – Defect of reason from
disease of the mind
– Belief that accused
was bewitched – Burden of proof
– Penal Code, s. 12 (U.).
Editor’s Summary
The accused was charged of
killing his father by one blow with
a panga and it was proved and
admitted
that the accused killed his father
because he believed that his
father was Satan and had
bewitched him.
There was no apparent motive
for the killing other than the belief
of the accused that his father had
bewitched him.
Held –
(i) when the accused killed his
father he did not know what he
was doing and he did not know
that he
ought not to have done the act.
(ii) the accused was guilty of the
act charged but insane at the
time.
Guilty but insane.

Cases referred to:

(1) Eria Galikuwa v. R., 18
E.A.C.A. 175.
(2) M‘Naghten’s Case (1843), 10
C1. & Fin. 200; 8 E.R. 718: sub.
nom. McNaughton’s Case, 4
State Tr.N.S. 847.
(3) Godiyano Barongo s/o
Rugwire v. R., 19 E.A.C.A. 229.
(4) Jama Warsama v. R., 17
E.A.C.A. 122.

Judgment
Lyon J: The accused is charged
here that on June 1, 1957, at
Nyarushanje, Kigezi district, he
murdered
Kachehakana. The deceased
man was accused’s father. They
had both been to a burial of a
boy at the
home of one Tadeo and were
walking home in the company of
Paulo Mashango. Paulo had a
bicycle; and
when he reached the road he
went on ahead. The evidence is
that on the way along accused
and his father
were on quite friendly terms.
There was no quarrel, at any rate
up to the time Paulo left them.
Indeed, it
seems clear that they were
talking in a friendly way. Paulo
continued on to the deceased’s
home. About
4.30 p.m. Mugongo reported
something to him. Paulo turned
back and found on the path the
body of
Kachehakana; the head had
been almost severed from the
trunk and was hanging
by the windpipe only. It
is proved and admitted that this
accused killed his father by one
blow with the panga produced,
the cause
of death being shock,
haemorrhage and sectional
cutting of the cervical spine. The
same afternoon
accused went to the acting
Gombolola chief, Inyansio
Matwigi, and volunteered the
information that he
had killed his father. They went
to the scene of the killing and,
soon after, accused said to the
acting
Gombolola chief, “I have killed
him because he was Satan.”
That is, of course, the East
African’s
expression of his belief that his
father was bewitching him.
It at first appeared to me that Mr.
Singh was trying to show that
there was a sudden provocation
in this
case which would fall within the
headnote of Eria Galikuwa v. R.
(1), 18 E.A.C.A. 175. But later,
when it
became clear that there was no
sudden provocation such as
would reduce the offence to
manslaughter,
Mr. Singh relied upon the
alternative defence that this man
Magata was guilty but insane.
Now when the accused had been
formally charged and cautioned
he made this statement to the
police:
“I killed Kachehakana because
he
bewitched my two sons and
killed them, he again bewitched
my wife and
killed her, also he bewitched me
and made me impotent. My feet
got swollen.
“He bewitched my goats and
killed them all, he bewitched my
cow which is still sick, he
bewitched my
second wife; she is always sick.

“Kachehakana asked for two

pots of beer so that he may treat
my wife and get her fit. I did so,
but nothing
was done to her.
“I never complained before the
Gombolola chief. Having been
provoked, I killed him. I have
been unable to
do my work because of being
bewitched.”
Accused now amplifies that
statement. He told the court in an
unsworn statement:
“After I was bewitched, I was
hated in the village and even my
relatives hated me. My second
wife also hated
me and said about a year ago
she was going to marry someone
else.
“Because I was bewitched, my
head was not right. Even my
ears were affected. I do not hear
properly.
My stomach became swollen. I
was bewitched a long time ago
by both my grandfather and my
father. When I
have sexual connections with my
wife, my penis burns. My feet
were swollen when I was a youth
and they are
still. My wife died because of ‘this
Satan.’
“My two children died. That was
‘Satan.’ Because of all these
things I killed my father. My cows
and goats
died. That is all I want to say.”

Insanity is defined by s. 12 of the

Penal Code:
“A person is not criminally
responsible for an act or
omission if at the time of doing
the act or making the
omission he is through any
disease affecting his mind
incapable of understanding what
he is doing, or of
knowing that he ought not to do
the act or
make the omission. But a person
may be criminally responsible for
an act or omission, although his
mind is affected by disease, if
such disease does not in fact
produce upon his
mind one or other of the effects
above-mentioned in reference to
that act or omission.”
That section must be read and
construed together with the rules
in McNaughton’s Case (2)
((1843), 4
State Tr. N.S. 847), and
decisions following that case
(Archbold (33rd Edn.), p. 16 et
seq.). Dr. Murphy
testified that when he examined
the
accused on June 3, 1957, he
appeared to be mentally normal.

Other
prosecution witnesses testified
that accused never complained
that his father had bewitched
him, nor did
they believe that accused had
been bewitched nor that his
family or that his animals had
been bewitched.
But it does not follow that
accused did not think so.
It is no part of the duty of the
prosecution to prove any motive.
At the same time absence of
motive
must be considered. Mr. Few
threw out a suggestion that
accused and his father
may have had a sudden
quarrel. There is no evidence of
that. There is no evidence from
which such an inference could be
drawn.
Indeed, as far as it goes Paulo’s
evidence negatives that as does
the statement accused made to
the acting
chief shortly after the killing.
Deceased owned two cows and
a few goats. Accused is his
oldest son and
would in normal circumstances
have inherited some of those.
But on the whole case I am
satisfied that
this was not the reason for the
killing.
The first assessor was of the
opinion that this man should be
convicted of murder.
On the other hand
, the second assessor told the
court:
“Accused killed his father
because his head was not well –
he was mad. He had those
thoughts for a long time
that his father was bewitching
him. This affected his mind. As
accused was coming from a
burial of a child he
thought of his own children and
he believed his father was
bewitching them. (I consider that
a good point).
When he killed his father his
mind was so affected that he did
not know he was doing wrong.”
This case is not free from
difficulty. I have considered the
words “disease of the
mind” in s. 12 of the
Penal Code. I am of the opinion
that an African living far away in
the bush may become so
obsessed with
the idea that he is being
bewitched that the balance of his
mind may be disturbed to such
an extent that it
may be described as disease of
the mind. Here the killing is
unexplained, and in my opinion
inexplicable; except upon the
basis that accused did not know
what he was doing. I have
directed myself along the
lines of the decision in Godiyano
Barongo s/o Rugwire v. R. (3), 19
E.A.C.A. 229. The headnote in
that
case is identical with the note of
the learned editors of Archbold
(33rd Edn.), p. 20: “The burden
of proof which rests upon
the prisoner to establish the
defence of insanity is not as
heavy as that
which rests upon the
prosecution. . . . It may be stated
as not being higher than the
burden which rests on the
plaintiff or defendant in civil
proceedings and may be
discharged by evidence
satisfying the jury of the
probability of that which the
prisoner is called on to
establish.”
I have also considered para. 27
in the Eleventh Cumulative
Supplement of May 25, 1957.
I have come to the conclusion,
mainly upon the evidence
adduced by the
prosecution but also upon
the accused’s statement to the
police, that when this accused
killed his father he did not know
what he
was doing and he did not know
that he ought not to have done
the act. In my opinion the
evidence as a
whole has established the
reasonable probability that this
was the accused’s state of mind
at the relevant
time; and in this finding I am in
agreement with the second
assessor.
For all these reasons I find the
accused guilty of the act charged
but insane at the time. (Jama
Warsama v. R. (4), 17 E.A.C.A.
122.)
Guilty but insane.
For the Crown:
HSS Few (Crown Counsel,
Uganda)
The Attorney-General, Uganda
For the accused:
Sat Pal Singh
Sat Pal Singh, Kampala