LOKU NONA and two others v. THE KING.

 

IN THE PRIVY COUNCIL.

 

On Appeal from the Supreme Court of Ceylon (Criminal

Jurisdiction).

 

Present: The Lord Chancellor, Lord Ashbourne, Lord

Macnaghten,  Lord Robertson,  Lord Atkinson,

and Lord Collins.

 

LOKU NONA and two others v. THE KING.

 

P. C., Negombo, 8,151.

 

    Special leave to appeal to the Privy Council-Conviction for murder- Mitigation of punishment pending the hearing of the appeal- Application to the Government of Ceylon or the Supreme Court.

 

The   Judicial  Committee  of   the Privy  Council  accorded special leave  to appeal from a  judgment of the  Supreme Court, in  its Criminal Jurisdiction, upholding  conviction and sentences  in a trial for murder.

 

Their Lordships were of   opinion that any application for mitigation of punishment, pending   the appeal, or for the admission of the  accused to bail, ought to  be addressed to the Ceylon Government or the Supreme Court.

 

THIS was a petition for special leave to appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court of Ceylon in its Criminal Jurisdiction of December 11, 1907, upholding a conviction and sentences in a trial for murder heard before Mr. Justice Wood Renton in November.

 

(See 11 N. L. R. 4.)

 

April 1, 1908,  Sir Robert Finlay,  K.C.,  Mr.  F. H.  M.  Corbet,  and Mr. E.  W. Jayewardene (of the Ceylon Bar) appeared for the   petitioners.

           

            The petition stated that the petitioners are Loku Nona, the wife of Migel Mudalali; her sister, Punchi Nona, an unmarried woman, 23 years of age; and Kaitan, a boy of 14, who was a servant in Loku Nona's house. They were charged with having, on or about July 31 last, at Talahena, in Ceylon, murdered a female servant called Carlina. After magisterial proceedings they were committed for trial, and were tried at the Colombo Criminal Sessions before Mr. Justice Wood Renton, with a jury of seven persons, four of whom were Europeans and three natives. The trial lasted from November 11 to 22, and the jury, by a majority of six to one, found the prisoners guilty, but recommended them to mercy. They were sentenced to death. The prisoners' counsel applied to the Judge, under the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code, to reserve certain questions for the consideration of the Collective Court, which he agreed to do. The case reserved came up for argument before Chief Justice Hutchinson and Justices Wendt and Middleton, who upheld the conviction. The sentences had since been commuted to twenty years' rigorous imprisonment. The case for the prosecution was that on the night of July 31, at about 10 o'clock, the first accused, Loku Nona, with a club handed to her by Peregrino (a servant), struck her servant Carlina, a girl of about 18 years of age, on the head; that Carlina fell, crying " amma " (mother); that Punchi Nona, the second accused, put her hand over Carlina's mouth to stop further cries; and that Loku Nona then told Jane, a servant girl about 14 years of age, to bring a knife. (Jane was the principal witness in the case. She was the only eye-witness.) The prosecution went on to allege that Jane brought a knife from the kitchen and gave it to Loku Nona, who handed it to Punchi Nona, saying " Cut her throat "; that while Kaitan, the third accused, held his hand over Carlina's mouth, Punchi Nona with the knife brought by Jane, inflicted a cut upon Carlina's throat; that Carlina then lay still, apparently dead; and that shortly afterwards, on the orders of the Mudalali (the husband of the first accused), Carlina was carried away towards the shore, to be thrown into the sea. According to the medical evidence " the cut on the throat was not fatal," and " the cause of death was concussion of the brain, due to contusions caused by some blunt instrument like a club." Four distinct contusions upon the head were found by the doctor who made the post-mortem examination. Jane sp

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