Summary
The appellant challenged concurrent murder convictions resting principally on a sole eyewitness who disclosed the incident only later. Considering the witness’s intoxication, uncertain visibility, unexplained silence during the prolonged occurrence and lack of independent incriminating evidence, the Court found the charge unproved and acquitted the appellant.
Issues
- Whether the sole eyewitness was sufficiently reliable to sustain the conviction.
- Whether the asserted motive, medical evidence and derivative witness accounts removed reasonable doubt.
Held
- A conviction may rest on one eyewitness if the evidence is cogent, credible and trustworthy. Quality rather than the number of witnesses controls; the whole record must be assessed against the prosecution’s burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt. (¶ 17–21)
- On these particular facts the eyewitness’s account was unsafe: he was intoxicated, no source of light was established, and he neither raised an alarm during the hour-long occurrence nor immediately disclosed it despite nearby relatives and residents. The subsequent threat did not explain his silence during the event. (¶¶ 22, 24)
- Witnesses who learned the account from the sole eyewitness supplied no independent substantive account of the murder. The alleged illicit relationship and resulting motive were not persuasively proved. Medical consistency with strangulation could not cure the inherent improbabilities of the central testimony, and no other clinching material established the charge. (¶ 22–24)
Result
Appeal allowed; appellant acquitted and directed to be released unless required in another case.