BEGBAH, alias PETER, Appellant, vs. REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA, Appellee.
[January Term, A. D. 1906.]
Appeal from the Court of Quarter Sessions and. Common Pleas, Montserrado County.
Murder.
This is a case in which appellant Begbah was indicted for the murder of one Dumah, both of whom are inhabitants of Krootown, Monrovia. At the September term, 1904, of the Court of Quarter Sessions and Common Pleas of Montserrado County, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to be executed. Appellant, by his attorney, motioned the court to set aside the verdict and to grant him a new trial, because to his mind the verdict was manifestly against the law and evidence in the case. Upon the court refusing to grant the motion, appellant excepted and prayed an appeal to the Supreme Court.
In reviewing the case this court has carefully considered the evidence to enable it to decide whether the facts as laid in the indictment were sustained at the trial below. Nothing is or can be dearer to man than his life, hence no other man nor a legal tribunal has the right to dispossess one of life, except by due process of law backed by unequivocal evidence. For this potent reason this court, the dernier ressortof justice, is slow and careful in weighing facts and evidence to the dispossessing of man of that life not given by man but given by God.
In this case, the court finds that there were employed seven witnesses on the part of the State, namely, N. H. Gibson, J. R. Allison, Africa and Willitoe Tobey, Dr. H.C. Faulkner, C. D. B. King and Iverson Thompson; on the part of the prisoner, appellant, one, namely, Johnson. By a careful examination of the evidence deposed, the court finds the depositions of the witnesses N. H. Gibson, J. R. Allison, Africa and Willitoe Tobey in substance to be the same, the variance not being sufficient to create doubt. That is to say, each of them saw appellant and the deceased fighting; that appellant was the assailant; that deceased had no weapon ; that appellant stabbed deceased three times—in the nose, arm and left side ; that after appellant had stabbed deceased, he ran. Iverson Thompson stated that appellant had a conversation with him, in which he said his heart was not good, because when he returned home from the river he caught a man in his bedroom having carnal intercourse with his wife. Upon cross-examination, he said that appellant told him that the man he caught was the deceased; that he, witness, asked deceased about the matter, and that he did not own or deny the charge, but simply smiled.
This is the gist of what witness Thompson stated. Dr. H. C. Faulkner stated that he was called to examine one Dumah on the 4thof August; that when he got there he found him dead, and the body was before a coroner’s jury; that he examined the body and found four flesh wounds, one on the forehead, one through the nose, penetrating the cavity of the nose in the right side, one on the back part of the shoulder, one under the arm between the 6th and 7th ribs ; that he carefully examined all these wounds, and one seemed to have been sufficient to cause death. He stated, upon cross-examination, that the instrument used, though not penetrating the heart, could in some cases cause death; that in this instance it penetrated the heart. The substance of the evidence of C. D. B. King is to the effect that notwithstanding appellant promised not to sue the man for trespass upon him, because he did not wish to have him bring trouble on him for a woman, but would leave her, yet subsequently, according to the evidence of other witnesses, three days having elapsed, he broke his promise and killed the man, or deceased.
The statement of Johnson, the witness for appellant, and the only witness, is not, in the opinion of this court, sufficient to overthrow the preponderance of the other evidence given by seven witnesses, and besides, in many instances he contradicts himself.
In view of the evidence and law in the case, which this court has reviewed and studied, the court says none of the points in the bill of exceptions taken by appellant is sustained. The appeal simply breaks down for want of law and evidence to sustain it. (Lib. Stat. p. 53, sec. 27; II Bouv. Law Dict. under the heads of “Relevancy,” “Opinion,” “Verdict,” and “New Trial”; I Greenleaf on Evidence, sec. 44o and note.) To support the court’s decree on the verdict, see II Bouv. Law Dict. under “Judgment”; Lib. Stat. p. 69, sec. 1; Lib. Criminal Code : “Murder.”
It is therefore the opinion of this court that the judgment of the court below, based on a legal verdict and supported by law and evidence, is correct, and the court adjudges the same affirmed, and commands the said court to resume jurisdiction in the case and carry out its judgment. The clerk of this court is hereby ordered to send a mandate to the court below, to the effect of this judgment.