OLLENNU J.S.C.: The appellant was found guilty by a jury of the murder of his wife one Amma Dagarti; he was accordingly convicted, and the only sentence allowed by law was passed upon him. He appealed against his conviction on two main grounds, namely: (1) the defence case of an absence of intention to kill (by reason of epilepsy) was not adequately put to the jury; and (2) there was a misdirection to the jury as to the unlawful nature of the harm done to the deceased.
The incidents which led to the proceedings occurred in the morning of 31 July 1963, between 8.00 and 8.30 o’clock, at a village called Bonsa, near Tarkwa. The appellant and his said wife had lodged with some countrymen of his in the said village. The appellant was in a room given to them by their host, and the wife was in the kitchen doing some cooking in the company of two other women. At a certain stage of the cooking the deceased left the other women to the room to fetch something she needed to put into her soup. Very…