A man who pleaded guilty to murdering his girlfriend has failed in his bid to have his conviction and sentence overturned after arguing that his trial was unfair as no assessors were present.
Thabo Morokoane, who pleaded guilty in August last year to murdering his lover after she admitted to having an affair with another man, said the court had erred by failing to comply with the mandatory requirements of a section of theMagistrate’s Court Act 32 of 1944, which rendered the trial unfair.
Against the backdrop of our law, and the...record, the first ground of appeal is without merit and stands to be dismissed,
— Judge Andrew Reddy
The section empowers the court to appoint assessors, especially during a murder trial. However, according to the judgment, Morokoane had decided not to have assessors. He also argued that his failure to admit the age of the deceased resulted in a miscarriage of justice.
However, North West high court judge Andrew Reddy said the transcribed record plainly rebuffed any notion that the regional court proceeded to trial without observing or complying with the relevant section of the Act.
“The appellant, duly represented by [a lawyer], confirmed in open court the correctness of the instruction... that he did not require the court a quo [the court from which the appeal originates] to be constituted with assessors. Against the backdrop of our law, and the...record, the first ground of appeal is without merit and stands to be dismissed,” Reddy ruled.
Morokoane had pleaded guilty, and confessed in his plea statement he had been in a relationship with his lover for eight years when he murdered her. He said he and the woman had visited his uncle when she decided to go “buy stuff”.
“When the deceased took long to return, I went to look for her,” he said. “I found her standing with a man called Victor. I had my suspicions that they were having affairs. When Victor saw me approaching, he left. I inquired from the deceased whether she was having an affair. She denied it. We proceeded to our home, where I continued to question her about my suspicions.”
Morokoane said she admitted to having an affair with Victor. He got angry and assaulted her with a closed fist on the face and then took her against her will to an abandoned building in Ipelegeng, where he stabbed her several times with a knife. He also hit her with a steel pipe on the head.
“I got frightened and ran home to tell my family of what I had just done to the deceased. We ran back to the building where the deceased was and attempted to assist her. I carried her on my back with the intention to take her to the clinic. On the way to the clinic, the police met us and assisted in taking the deceased to the clinic.
“I further confirm the following: I knew that my conduct of taking the complainant to the abandoned building without her will was unlawful; I knew that my conduct of assaulting the deceased by stabbing her with a knife and hitting her with a steel pipe was unlawful; I confirm that I had the intention to kill the deceased by stabbing her multiple times with a knife and assaulting her with a steel pipe.”
On Morokoane’s argument about his lover’s age not being mentioned, Reddy said: “The age of the deceased is not an essential element of the charge of murder. The second ground of appeal is similarly without merit and stands to be dismissed.”
Morokoane was sentenced to life in prison.
Reddy said the woman endured a ruthless and callous death.
He also commented on the conduct of the lawyer who represented Morokoane in his appeal, saying that he would have had implicit knowledge of the matters of law, and instances where memory refreshing was necessary, and that the transcribed record would have supplemented the same.
“Thus, to assert conclusively that the court a quo disregarded the law on two scores or turned a blind eye to egregious violations of the appellant’s fair trial rights is simply disingenuous...On a reasonable appraisal of the record, the appeal against conviction on the two grounds relied upon was proverbially dead on arrival,” he said.
Reddy said after a careful consideration of the record and the heads of argument, Morokoane failed to demonstrate against the “blueprint of well-established principles disjunctively or conjunctively, instances in which this court may interfere with the sentence imposed by the court a quo”.
“That being so, the finding by the court a quo that there existed no substantial and compelling circumstances that justified a departure from the imposition of the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment cannot be faulted. It follows that the appeal against the sentence must fail.”
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