PEEHN, DEAH and TARNEY, Principals, and MOSES GBARGIDI and TORBOR, Accessories, Appellants, v. REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE FIRST JUDICIAL CIRCUIT, MONTSERRADO COUNTY.
Argued April 20-23, 27, 28, 1936. Decided May 15, 1936.
1. The extent to which a witness may be cross-examined for the purposes of affecting his credibility rests almost entirely in the discretion of the trial judge.
2. When the trial has been regularly and fairly conducted, and the testimony and other evidence given excludes any hypothesis of reasonable doubt, the judgment of the court below will be affirmed.
On appeal from conviction of murder, judgment affirmed.
C. H. Taylor and A. B. Ricks for appellants. The Attorney General for appellee.
MR. JUSTICE RUSSELL delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case is before this Court upon appeal from the Circuit Court of the First Judicial Circuit, Montserrado County, at its August term, 1935. His Honor Nete-Sie Brownell, Judge presiding.
The record in the case shows that Peehn, Deah and Tarney, principals, and Moses Gbargidi and Torbor, accessories before and after the fact, appellants, were inhabitants of Moses Gbargidi’s town in the settlement of Johnsonville, Montserrado County. That sometime between the 23rd day of February and March 13th, 1935, one Yunnoh Koon accused Yunnoh Teah, Moses Gbargidi’s head wife, of having committed adultery with one Ballah, a servant boy of Moses Gbargidi, which act, according to the native customs, is one of the basest that can be committed by a head wife. This accusation was denied by the aforesaid Yunnoh Teah and she applied for sassywood in order that she might exonerate herself. Peehn, one of the principals in this case, procured the juice of a certain tree called a “milk tree” and put it into Yunnoh Teah’s eye, which ordeal, it is said, caught Yunnoh Teah, and she confessed the accusation by calling the name of Ballah, the paramour of Tarney, another of the principals, who is sister of Moses Gbargidi, one of the accessories in this case.
This confession of Yunnoh Teah enraged Tarney and caused her to say substantially: “It is not Ballah alone who had connection with you, there are others whose names you refuse to call; this sassywood which you have taken is yours, but tomorrow you will take our sassywood.” See testimony of Kie, Wreh, Yunnoh, record page 2 of the minutes of August 12, 1935.
On the next day Tarney, Torbor and Peehn, together with several other people, took Yunnoh Teah to the rubber farm at Johnsonville to a switch sassywood man to take the second sassywood in order that she might call the other man’s name with whom she was charged by Tarney of having committed adultery. On their arrival at the rubber farm, the sassywood man asked them where were they going, and they replied, we have come to you to administer sassywood to this woman Yunnoh Teah. The sassywood man then said : .”This woman is sick, and you want me to give her sassywood?” Yunnoh Teah the decedent then said: “I am not sick, although sometime ago I stepped on poison which affected my foot, but I do not regard it to be anything because I can go about and attend to my domestic duties as usual.” The sassywood man, Darvie by name, inquired : “Who is the husband of this woman?” and Torbor one of the accessories, being a nephew of Moses Gbargidi’s, personated himself to be the husband of Yunnoh Teah. After the payment of the fees for the administering of the sassywood, which were a four shilling piece of cloth and two shillings in cash, the sassywood man began the playing of the sassywood and Yunnoh Teah would call the names of other men, but which she would afterwards immediately deny and say : “I was afraid of the sassywood. This caused me to call these people’s names; but they have not committed adultery with me.” When the playing of the sassywood was resumed for the last time, Yunnoh Teah caught the switches with which they administered the sassywood and she and the sassywood player fell to the ground.
When the sassywood was whipping the decedent with the switches and the bystanders would make an effort or attempt to go to her rescue, Torbor, Moses Gbargidi’s nephew, would stop them by saying: “I am captain of this ship,” which means in other words, “I am responsible for any consequence.”
The sassywood man seeing the stubbornness of Yunnoh Teah, the decedent, in refusing to call the name of someone whose name they said she was concealing, said to Torbor and the other interested parties: “The Government only gives me permission to administer sassywood and tell what I see but not to kill or harm anybody. As this woman refuses to call the name of the man who still remains, I cannot force her nor will I go any further in the administration of the sassywood—take her and go home.” Torbor and Tarney left the crowd and went ahead to Moses Gbargidi at his town, and reported to him that the sassywood had caught Yunnoh Teah and she had called six men’s names and absolutely refused to call the last man’s name whom the sassywood man said was still remaining. Decedent was stripped of her clothing except a towel thrown around her by sorrowing friends, and she was brought back through the rain, practically naked, from the rubber farm to Moses Gbargidi’s town in Johnsonville. Upon the arrival of the party, Moses Gbargidi then gave instructions to them to compel her to call the name of this last man, and at the arrival of Peehn and others with Yunnoh Teah, there was a great gathering from the surrounding villages to Moses Gbargidi’s town. In obedience to Moses Gbargidi’s orders, Torbor and Peehn went behind the house and procured sticks from a sour plum tree, the size of a chair round, and tied them together and made switches with them; Tarney also got a cassava stick about the size of a man’s arm as pointed out by the witnesses in the course of their testimony, and Tarney, Deah and Peehn began to beat Yunnoh Teah with these aforementioned implements while she was stretched out upon the ground. In the course of this beating, Tarney, one of the principals, struck decedent in the pit of her stomach with the cassava stick which she was using, which at once disabled decedent and stopped her bladder from functioning. Deah, one of the principals, then cut the hair of decedent while she was still helpless as the immediate consequence of the brutal beating given her by the aforesaid Tarney, Deah and Peehn, and gave the hair to Moses Gbargidi, the husband of Yunnoh Teah: the said husband being present in his town the whole while Tarney, Deah and Peehn were unmercifully beating his head wife -Yunnoh Teah. During this maltreatment and as her long hair was being cut by Deah, decedent said: “Oh! Deah, you are my husband’s relative, after you get through beating me then you cut all of my hair? I am very much hurt by this act on your part in cutting my hair.” Decedent died within four days of this beating and ill-treatment. This is the synopsis of the case now before this Court as given by the witnesses for the prosecution.
Before going any further into this case, we want to observe that it is considered a disgrace, and a great scandal according to the native customs, for a head wife of a responsible man, or of a master of a town, to commit adultery with a servant boy of her husband, and it is also reprehensible and strictly forbidden for a brother-in-law to cohabit with his sister-in-law. The records in this case reveal the fact that Moses Gbargidi and Tarney are brother and sister and Ballah who, it is alleged, committed adultery with Yunnoh Teah, the head wife of Moses Gbargidi, was a servant of Moses Gbargidi, and that he had paid no dowry for Tarney, sister of Moses Gbargidi.
Upon the facts of decedent’s death being made current in the settlement, a coroner’s jury was impanelled who found that decedent came to her death by unnatural means. This accusation so enraged Moses Gbargidi, the husband, that he agreed for the body to be brought to Monrovia for a post mortem examination. The body was brought, and accordingly examined by Dr. R. G. Fuszek at the morgue of the Liberian Government Hospital, and a report filed in the Department of Justice which stated inter alia that “when deceased suffered the bodily injuries the bladder was full and a sudden blow on the region of the bladder, or a sudden severe fall which might have a similar effect, caused the rupturing of the bladder. The indirect consequence of this, together with the shock which it inflicted on the feeble organism, and the inability to void urine (uraemia) caused her death.” Protocol of Dr. R. G. Fuszek, marked by Court “A” and dated March 30, 1935.
These facts having been collected, the defendants were arrested, indicted, tried, convicted and duly sentenced to death by hanging. As a result of the trial, a bill of exceptions of forty-one counts has been submitted for the consideration of this Court of last resort.
The indictment charges Peehn, Deah and Tarney as principals, or those who participated in the beating of decedent, and during which beating and ill-treatment the woman, Tarney, inflicted the fatal blow which is supposed to have caused the rupture of the bladder, produced uraemia, and led to her death. It also charges Moses Gbargidi and Torbor as accessories before and after the fact: that is, that they were present, counselling, commanding, advising, inducing, procuring, aiding and abetting the aforementioned principals the felony to commit and do.
We have also examined the bill of exceptions with that care that should characterize the attention given to a murder case—where the lives of individuals are involved —and we find that said bill of exceptions is for the most part complaining about questions that were put by the prosecution and to which the counsel for defense excepted for various reasons, and which the trial judge overruled. We have considered said questions, the objections made thereto, and the reasons given by the trial judge for overruling them, and we find said rulings sound and supported both by law and the evidence arising in the trial of the case. Without attempting to set down hard and fast rules in the discretion allowed a trial judge in the conduct of a case, this Court cited with approval, from page 609, §198 of the 28th volume of Ruling Case Law, in the case Kelleng v. Republic as follows :
“In spite of the rule that a witness may be interrogated on cross-examination as to matters affecting his credibility, yet ‘the exact extent to which this cross examination may go rests almost entirely in the discretion of the trial court.'” [1934] LRSC 4; 4 L.L.R. 33, 35, I Lib. New Ann. Ser. 35,37.
Counts one to thirty-three of the bill of exceptions contain solely questions put by the prosecution and objected to by the defense and the court ordered said questions answered. From a survey of the trial we find no error committed by the trial judge in allowing said questions answered ; nor do we find that the defendants were deprived of any legal right by the answering of said questions as ordered by the trial judge. Those questions as we have examined, drew out the salient points of the facts in the case; it was incumbent upon the State to prove all the essential points as laid in the indictment, and this was the tendency of the questions to which exceptions were taken.
Counts thirty-four, thirty-seven and thirty-nine relate to the only three questions put by the defense which upon objection properly taken, the court in its discretion overruled and did not allow answered. This shows that the trial judge during the eleven days of trial gave every legitimate latitude to both parties to develop their respective lines of prosecution and defense so that the truth or falsity of the charge might be fully established and proven.
Count thirty-eight of the bill of exceptions excepts to the verdict of the petit jury; count forty excepts to the court’s overruling the motion for a new trial; and count forty-one to the judgment sentencing prisoners to death. On the whole from a study of the bill of exceptions, we find, and come to the conclusion, that the trial was fair, impartial, regular and conducted with every legal propriety and the judge, in either allowing or overruling the questions put, was not in error but in strict conformity with the law controlling the reception of evidence. Tobah alias Winnebah, et al., v. Republic[1911] LRSC 10; , 2 L.L.R. 53, I Lib. Ann. Ser. 31 (1911).
We now pass on to the verdict of the petit jury which constitutes the complaint in count thirty-eight of the bill of exceptions filed by defendants. Besides the evidence of the first witness for the State, Wreh Yunnoh, which was very clear, cogent, comprehensive and materially relevant to the corpus delicti and from which the synopsis of the case is largely drawn, the State produced one Palyodo, a man not a member of the tribe to which the parties charged with this offense belonged.
He stated :
“Tarney, Deah and Peehn, those are the ones who flogged the decedent. Moses Gbargidi did not take a part in the beating but when they were beating the decedent Moses Gbargidi the husband was present. . . Then Deah came and took a razor and cut her hair off. Moses Gbargidi took the hair and wrapped it and kept it. When they were beating her, the decedent, I said : ‘The way you all are beating the woman (that is, the decedent) that is big trouble that you are bringing and so you all must turn her loose.’ One woman by the name of Gbardee said to me: ‘You are a Sarpo man and have nothing to do with our matter.’ When they returned from the sassywood, the sassywood did not beat her because she herself walked from the Rubber farm to Moses Gbargidi’s place. Deah and Peehn took charge of the right side and Tarney took charge of the left side of the decedent.” See evidence of Palyodo, August 13, 1935.
This witness further testified that decedent lived only three days after the beating and on the fourth day she died. Witness Korte Porteh testified as follows :
“When running from Gardnersville to Johnsonville, I found decedent bad off. . . . When I was going I met messengers on the way coming to call me. I asked them what was the trouble. They said in reply : The Wah people are troubling Yunnoh Teah and she is dying. . . . When I arrived at Moses Gbargidi’s town I asked Pardeh what was the trouble and she said that one Deah, Peehn and Tarney flogged Yunnoh Teah. The decedent even told me that : `If I die, the cassava stick Tarney struck me with under the stomach is the one killing me.’ I ask decedent, `Where was your husband Moses Gbargidi?’ She said that Moses was present.”
Witness Pardeh testified as follows :
“I said to decedent, upon arrival, ‘What is the trouble with you? If you remain in such a state then I would have to carry you before the Executive Government.’ The decedent replied : ‘I?’ I replied : `Yes.’ I said further that ‘If anybody laid hands on you, explain it to me.’ The decedent said, `My Mother[1] one Doe Wreh Tarney, struck me on the lower part of my stomach.’ I asked her was it Tarney alone who struck her, she said including one Deah and Peehn.”
Decedent also stated to witness Pardeh that her husband Moses Gbargidi was present, sitting on a bench and that he had her hair which Deah had cut off. She further testified that when she went to bathe decedent the lower part of her stomach was swollen up; that decedent died on the fourth day after the beating and that decedent said Tarney struck her with a cassava stick about the size of her wrist. “Deah bound two sticks together and Peehn also had two sticks; with these she was beaten.” Evidence of Pardeh. August 14, 1935.
Just here we feel that we should remark how strangely coincidental it is that in this case the decedent died on the fourth day exactly as in a case reported by Archbold which reads:
“There are also many cases where locomotion, to a considerable extent, has been exercised after ruptures of the bladder ; and extravasation of urine. In one case, a man, while intoxicated, was made sober by a blow on the lower part of the abdomen. Taylor, 301.
“He felt cold immediately on receiving the blow, but walked home the distance of a quarter of a mile, although suffering great agony. He died four days after the accident. No ecchymosis was found on any part of the abdomen, but the bladder was ruptured in its upper and posterior portion about an inch in length.” Archbold, 916.
Witness J. J. ‘Williams testified that when he heard of this beating he called to see decedent because she was Choir Mistress of their Church.
“I said to her, ‘Teah, what is the trouble?’ She said, ‘They have killed me. . . .’ She said that Moses Gbargidi put milk stick in her eye and broke her eye and said further ‘I have not urinated for three days because Tarney struck me on the lower part of my stomach.’ ”
J. J. Williams further testified when he took up the matter of the beating of decedent with her husband Moses Gbargidi he said to witness Williams :
” ‘You come to look for complaint to carry?’ I said, ‘No, but simply came to see about the treatment that you people are giving your wife Yunnoh Teah.’ Then he said : ‘I am on my way now for the third palm oil sassywood man.’ So we walked together. After getting on the road, I said, ‘Brother Moses, what is the trouble?’ He said, ‘Brother Joe, this woman, I see trouble for her. She left her husband and I prized her and I paid 0s. 0d. for her dowry and the thing that hurts me is that she would not call that one man whose name she has not yet called—whether he is a “Merican men” or what.’ I said, ‘Well, you better leave her before you get into trouble.’ I said, `Look how Tarney and those boys beat the woman.’ He said, ‘Strangers did not beat her but they did it by my order; she is my wife.’ So I said ‘Alright. I hope these people don’t put you in trouble.’ He said, ‘Do you think that strangers would come in my town and beat her and I am Justice of the Peace.’ So I said ‘Alright.’ He went on his way. On my return I met Tarney, one of the defendants in the dock. I took the matter of the beating up with her and asked her why did she strike decedent in the bottom of her stomach. She replied : ‘Wait, let me tell you. The husband that I had had left me and now this poor bush boy that I brought to my brother’s town who is working for me, Yunnoh Teah, has made love with him and now Moses Gbargidi has driven the said boy from his town ; that is the reason why I struck her.’ ” Evidence of J. J. Williams, August 14., 1935.
Witness R. G. Fuszek on the stand identified the medical report filed in the Department of Justice on the postmortem examination held. He also produced at the trial the organs of the deceased which he had extracted and preserved, and which illustrated most conclusively the injury of the rupture of the bladder, and the Doctor said verbatim :
“The decedent suffered an injury in the lower part of her abdomen. Whether this injury was caused by a direct blow on the abdomen or by a blow which she suffered through a fall is from a medico-legal point of view not important. It is important, however, that when the decedent suffered the injury her bladder was full, and when the blow reached this full bladder it was pushed with a sudden force against the vertebral column. If a bladder filled with liquid suffers a blow on one part, then in that liquid the lines of transmission of the energy imparted to the liquid will be distributed ; thus the whole energy will be concentrated on the opposite pole. In the meantime the whole mass is being pushed against the bone and from the repercussion will be equal to the impact from the outside; therefore on the point where the bladder hits the bone there will be double force. In our case just there where the most severe force was exercised in consequence of the impact and the repercussion, that is, between the bladder and the bone, is situated the womb, and thus it happened that the bladder ruptured on the back wall and the womb penetrated into the bladder. With the rupturing of the bladder all the urine emptied into the cavity of the abdomen, and from then on, the decedent did not urinate anymore, because whatever urine that was produced by the kidneys was emptied through the rupture of the badder into the cavity of the abdomen. We have to take into consideration now that in the urine are eliminated from the system all these poisonous products which are being produced during the metabolism, i.e., the chemical working of the organism, and if their elimination is impossible then they accumulate in the organism and cause a poisoning of the organism, which is known under the name of Uraemia. . . .
“That the injury has taken place during the life of the decedent is proved by the inflammatory reactions on the edge of the bladder and on the corresponding parts of the womb which touched the part of the bladder.
“To my mind it is therefore positively proven that decedent died in direct consequence of the injury.”
As an effort to break down the evidence of the State, each of the defendants took the stand and gave testimony in his or her own behalf. Witnesses also testified on behalf of prisoners other than themselves, all of which tended to show that the decedent suffered from some inexplicable trouble in the head and stomach, as they alleged, which was in the form of an object moving up and down in her stomach that decedent also suffered from a poisoned leg though she was sufficiently well and did her domestic duties prior to the alleged beating: that decedent administered the tree milk to herself in the eye; that she went to the sassywood at the rubber farm of her own accord to exonerate herself ; that the sassywood man beat decedent violently and knelt on her stomach; that if at all her bladder was ruptured, it was due to the sassywood player kneeling on decedent’s stomach and not to any beating inflicted on her by the accused.
This is the very pith of the defense, their endeavor having been to establish that she was beaten by the sassywood man, who thereafter knelt on her stomach, and that conceding that she did die from uraemia caused by the rupturing of the bladder, it was due to the kneeling on the woman’s stomach by the said sassywood man or to the blow inflicted by Tarney, and that if such a doubt had not been properly resolved, it should operate in favor of appellants.
Theoretically appellants’ thesis is correct, but is it borne out by the testimony?
Witness Blamoh Jeugbeh of Gardnersville, testifying in behalf of appellants, said inter alia:
“After the playing of the sassywood, I remained in Moses Gbargidi’s town nine days and nothing happened to Teah, decedent. But she was only complaining of her foot. I went back home to Gardnersville and was there one week after which Moses Gbargidi came to call me saying that his wife Yunnoh Teah is seriously ill and ‘she is dying.’ Moses Gbargidi and I returned to his home in Johnsonville. When I got to Moses Gbargidi’s place, I met decedent in the hands of Deboh attending her. While Deboh and I were attending the decedent, Deboh brought Jesse Benson’s wife to Monrovia. Before coming to bring Benson’s wife she got one woman by the name of Pardeh to assist me during her absence. Then Deboh returned to Johnsonville after spending three days in Monrovia. When Deboh returned to Moses Gbargidi, then Pardeh herself went to her place. When Pardeh, Deboh and I were attending, Deboh sat down, decedent sitting in her (Deboh’s) lap, I held the feet of decedent because she said she was suffering from her feet. Moses Gbargidi, the husband of decedent, gave us money to go to different doctors. The first doctor was Jallah, second doctor Wrejah and the third doctor was Kparyoulo. We went to them three doctors and not doing her any good unfortunately she died. This is all I know about the matter.” Record of August 17, 1935, page 44.
This witness in this very essential part of her testimony corroborated Moses Gbargidi, one of the appellants, who said they went up to the rubber farm “February 20th 1935, and decedent died March 17th 1935,” approximately twenty-five days after the alleged beating at the rubber farm, not far from the period that Blamo Jeugbeh said had elapsed, which period Dr. Fuszek, supported by the above citation from Archbold, proves that a person with a ruptured bladder could not have lived.
Moreover, the hypothesis of appellants that she was severely beaten by the sassywood holder, and that he knelt on her stomach, has been even more directly contradicted by the rebutting testimony of appellee as appears from the following:
Darvie the owner of the sassywood was brought to the stand and the following question was put:
“Q. Do you swear on that Karfu that you have taken that during the playing of the sassywood switch holder Gbargbar and decedent did not struggle together over the switch and both fell on the ground and the said switch holder put his knee on her stomach?”
“A. I do so swear that kneeling on the decedent’s stomach did not happen.” Deboh the switch holder on the stand testified as follows :
“Q. Say for the benefit of the Court and Jury whether Yunnoh Teah caught hold of the switch and tusseled with the holder of said switch and both of them fell to the ground and the switch holder knelt on her stomach?”
“A. It never happened because I was present the whole while.”
The State, by way of further discrediting this evidence, during the rebutting testimony produced the sassywood player, Darvie, who testified that Torbor and Geebeh took decedent to him. That upon being paid four shillings cloth and two shillings, he played the sassywood and decedent called three men’s names, it remaining one more whose name she refused to call. He said : “I have been setting or playing sassywood for a long time and my sassywood beats no one; so not being willing to allow the sassywood to beat decedent, I turned her over to them to be carried away. They told me that when they carried her they would make her tell the other man’s name. . . . The switch does not beat anybody and the decedent was not beaten by it on this occasion.”
In answer to a question as to how it is known that the sassywood has caught the accused, witness said : “The sassywood leaves the starting place toward the mortar and knocks on the back of the person. Then it is known that the person is guilty of the charge in question.” Evidence of Darvie, August 20, 1935.
In answer to the question : “Please say for the benefit of the court and jury whether on this day which the sassywood was being played that Yunnoh Teah, the decedent, caught hold of the switch and she and the holder tusseled over the switch, both of them fell to the ground and the switch holder knelt on her stomach?” Answer : “No, it is not true.”
From the abundance of evidence we feel that the jury could have reached no other rational conclusion than that arrived at in their verdict, to wit: “That death was actually attributed to the beating, striking and illtreating of the body of Yunnoh Teah aforesaid, by Tarney, Deah and Peehn and therefore they are guilty of the charge alleged. And (2) that Moses Gbargidi and Torbor, two of the defendants and accessories before and after the fact, did stand as aiders and abettors of Tarney, Deah and Peehn in the commission of the alleged crime murder, and therefore are also guilty of the alleged charge.”
The trial judge correctly overruled the motion for new trial which was predicated only on the insufficiency of the evidence, there being no legal error complained of in said motion as having been committed during the trial of the cause.
Finally, all that proceeded at the trial having been considered regular, and in due process of law, the trial judge was in our opinion correct in entering final judgment based upon the law and the evidence arising in the case, and in sentencing defendants to death by hanging. The judgment of the court below should therefore be affirmed; and it is so ordered.
Affirmed.
[1] The word ‘Mother’ used here refers to Tarney, the elder sister of the husband, who according to the custom of the tribe stood in place of a mother to all her brother’s wives.