Baptiste v The State
| Jurisdiction | Trinidad & Tobago |
| Judge | Kelsick, J.A. |
| Judgment Date | 04 February 1983 |
| Neutral Citation | TT 1983 CA 11 |
| Docket Number | Crim. Appeal No. 4 of 1981 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Trinidad and Tobago) |
| Date | 04 February 1983 |
Court of Appeal
Kelsick, C.J. (Ag),; Braithwaite, J.A.; Bernard, J.A.
Crim. Appeal No. 4 of 1981
R.L. Maharaj and O. Charles for the appellant
V. Nunez for the respondent
Criminal Law - Appeal against conviction (Murder)
Practice and procedure - Appeal against conviction of murder — Directions to the jury on mens rea, circumstantial evidence, provocation and accident — Whether adequate — No a fit case for application of the proviso so as to affirm the conviction — Appeal allowed.
Judgment delivered by Kelsick, J.A. On November 23 rd, 1982, we allowed the appeal of the appellant and set aside his conviction and sentence for the murder of Patricia Marquis (“Pat”) at Port of swain on August 1 st, 1979, and we ordered a retrial. We stated that we would give the reasons for our decision at a later date which we now proceed to do.
Anthony Hendrickson, a calypsonian with the sobriquet “Allrounder”, was a mutual friend of the Marquis' family and of the appellant, otherwise known as “Jackie”, who as the paramour of Pat early in 1979 took up lodging at the home of her mother where several of the mother's children and grandchildren also reside.
Pat had previously had a lover in Victor Sweeney (“Victor”) who was the father of the youngest of hex four children.
The ease for the prosecution was as follows:
Around 6.45 p.m. on August 1 st, 1979, Allrounder stopped in his wa1f outside the Marquis' family home at 4 Davis Street, Belmont, to sit and chat with a group of persons which included the appellant and Pat, who, with her 11 month old baby, was seated next to John Alexander (“John”). John and Allrounder were the only two witnesses to the incident leading to Pat's death.
The appellant called Allrounder aside to whom he confided his personal problems and from whom he sought advice arid help. He was concerned about pending charges against him for larceny and for unlawful possession if marihuana, which seemed to have turned the Marquis family against him. In desperation he said to Allrounder that he felt like killing all of them, specifically mentioning Pat and her mother. Allrounder exhorted him to say his prayers and to abandon those thoughts.
Allrounder then resumed conversation with the others and this centered on the farmer's calypsoes for the next season. Allrounder and John left and returned with some liquor of which Allrounder, John and Pat partook. At Pat's request the appellant took the baby inside the house. On his return, having changed from long into short, he called Pat who, clothed in her night dress, went and sat with him on a bench on the opposite side of Davis Street from the rest of the company. Suddenly there was a sound from the bench of “Oh God” and Pat, washed in blood, ran in a stagger, calling “Mammy, Mammy” and on reaching the yard of the house she fell. The appellant stood up watching her, with a knife about 9 inches long in his hand, and then he ran up to Laventille. This was between 9 and 10 p.m. and there was a lamp post alight in the street. Allrounder assisted in getting Pat by car to the Port of Spain General Hospital.
In cross-examination Allrounder denied that there had been any tussle between Pat and the appellant; whereas John stated that they did in a standing position, couple up and hold on in a wrestling motion for 5 to 10 minutes. John deposed to seeing two stab wounds in Pat's pack when she was in the yard.
Sylvia Jerome (“Sylvia”), one of Pat's sisters, who had left the house as Allrounder arrived to pay a visit to Errol Charles, said that at 10.30p.m. she was standing with Errol at Picton Road waiting fox a taxi to return home when the appellant in short pants came towards her walking in a hurry: She called and asked where he was going. He replied “I just give your sister three - stabs, you better go and see if she is dead”. He repeated that statement to her in response to her enquiring “What it is you say?” Sylvia then took a taxi to the Port of Spain General Hospital where she met her sister Bernadette and her cousin coming from the Casualty Department.
In response to a telephone call at 1.30 a.m. on August 2 nd, 1979, Inspector Richardson proceeded to 4 Davis Street with a police photographer who took some photographs. He said that there were lighted bulbs an a lamp post 62 feet from a bench on the opposite side of the street and that in front of the bench there were stains resembling blood.
On August 4 th, he led a search party to a house in East Dry River. He called out to the appellant to come out of the house, as it was surrounded. The appellant replied: “I not coming out and if you come in I will stab myself”. Richardson testified that on his entering the house he saw the appellant sitting on a bed attired in short pants. Richardson told him of the report concerning Pat's death and of the account of the incident as recounted above, and he cautioned him. The appellant said he was feeling weak. There was a small puncture wound in his chest which he informed Richardson he had inflicted on himself with a pair of scissors that were on the floor and which Richardson took possession of and tendered in evidence. He took the appellant to the Port of Spain General Hospital where he was attended to by Dr. Coelho and warded.
Richardson again spoke to the appellant on August 12 th, 1979, at the C.I.D. Port of Spain, where he repeated to him the report and amplified it by notifying him of Pat's death from stab wounds; and he again cautioned the appellant. The appellant declared that he and Pat had an argument that night over a pack of cigarettes and he stabbed her with a knife, which he threw into some bushes off Picton Road in Laventille. The appellant directed Richardson and other police officers to a spot which they searched; but they did not find the knife.
Richardson denied that the appellant had told him that the wound on his chest was inflicted by Pat.
The deposition of Dr. Coelho, who was absent from the territory, was admitted by consent. The doctor stated that on examining the appellant at 5.30 a.m. on August 4 th, 1979, at the Port of Spain General Hospital he found a 1 cm. laceration on his second left intercostal spaces left eternal edge and anterior chest walls, which appeared to have been caused by a sharp instrument, but that it was difficult to tell the degree of force used.
Dr. Dopson, a forensic pathologist, performed an autopsy on Pat's body on August 2 nd, 1979, which revealed the following injuries: There was a stab wound 32 inches deep on the anterior or front wall of the chest which traveled from front to back, from left to right and somewhat downward, cut the second rib cartilage and ruptured the aorta and pulmonary artery. There were two wounds on the posterior wall or back. One of these was about 3 inches in depths high up on the right side dust below the shoulder blade and penetrated the right lung and liver. Both of these wounds travelled from back to front and downward. There was significant hemorrhaging (1000 cc.) around the wounds, and in the left chest cavity there was about 1 liter of blood.
The wounds could have been inflicted by a sharp cutting instrument, the first with moderate to severe force and the other two with moderate force. Death could have been caused by the wound to the bank alone or by the wound to the upper back alone.
The appellant gave evidence on oath to the following effect:
Pat had told him that she had fought with Victor (the father of her youngest child and that she had finished with him. After he had teen charged on May 20 th, 1979, with larceny of jewelry, Pat began to go out, and to sleep with Victor and she resorted to drink. The appellant's remonstrations to her concerning her ‘behaviour were rebuffed. On the day before August 1 st, 1979, Pat had slept away from home. On August 1 st, the appellant went unsuccessfully in search of work at the Special Works Project. On his return he met Pat sweeping the house and, in response to his enquiry, she said that she had slept at home the previous night.
The appellant admitted the conversation with Allrounder except (i) the allegation that he said he felt like killing Pat and her mother; and (ii) the facts deposed to by Allrounder that transpired after he sat on the bench with Pat.
According to him, he chided her for the kind of life she was living and promised her that after the case everything would be all might. She brushed him aside. She pulled away her hand and moved to rise from the bench. He stretched out his hand to her and said “You know I feel to bust your --- mouth.” She thereupon pushed her hand in her bosom and pulled what at first he said was a knife, and threatened to kill him that night. In cress-examination he said he did not see the knife, as it was dark. They wrestled for the knife for about 5 minutes during which time she stabbed him. He pushed her two hands with the knife towards her body when she was stabbed. He declared that he could not say how she got stabbed in the back; he knew of only one stab.
He denied having seen or spoken to Sylvia; he also denied the statements attributed to him by Richardson. He alleged that he had told Richardson that Fat had stabbed him that same night during the wrestling encounter; that on August 4 th, Richardson had found the scissors on a dressing table, and that he informed Richardson that they belonged to his cousin.
He admitted that Allrounder was his long time friend whom he trusted.
The grounds of appeal are that the judge failed to direct the jury adequately on the question of (i) self-defence, accident, provocation; (ii) circumstantial evidence; and (iii) that he failed to put the defence of the appellant fairly and adequately.
In regard to Ground (i) the complaint is that the judge failed to give an...
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