The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council Decisions

James v. The Queen Barbados [1999] UKPC 15 (22nd March, 1999)

Privy Council Appeal No. 5 of 1998

Arleigh Hector James Appellant

v.

The Queen Respondent

FROM

---------------

REASONS FOR REPORT OF THE LORDS OF THE JUDICIAL

COMMITTEE OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL OF THE

9th February 1999, Delivered the 22nd March 1999

------------------

Lord Slynn of Hadley

[Delivered by Sir Patrick Russell]

------------------

1. On 9th February 1999 at the conclusion of the hearing their Lordships agreed humbly to advise Her Majesty that the appeal ought to be allowed, the verdict of guilty of murder quashed and the sentence of death set aside. In substitution for the verdict of murder there should be a verdict of manslaughter on the ground of diminished responsibility. The question of sentence would be left for the Court of Appeal in the light of the substituted verdict and any up-to-date medical report which may be obtained. The matter should be remitted to the Court of Appeal for this purpose. Their Lordships now set out the reasons for their decision.

2. The appellant, Arleigh Hector James, was charged with the murder of Deborah James in Barbados on 23rd May 1994. He was convicted before Carlisle Payne J. and a jury on 25th July 1996 and sentenced to death. On 27th January 1997 the Court of Appeal of Barbados dismissed the appellant’s appeal against his conviction. On 22nd July 1997 the appellant was granted special leave to appeal to their Lordships’ Board.

3. The victim was the wife of the appellant. He did not dispute that he was criminally responsible for the killing. The real issue for the jury was whether the appropriate verdict should be guilty of murder or guilty of manslaughter on the ground of provocation and/or diminished responsibility.

4. For some time prior to the victim’s death there had been some disharmony between her and the appellant. The local pastor and his wife became involved, and on the morning of the killing they were together, seated in their van near to the appellant’s home, whilst Deborah James was packing some of her clothes into the van. It seems she was in the process of leaving her husband, the appellant. He, having learnt of this, obtained a cutlass from his shed. Armed with this weapon he launched a frenzied attack upon the victim close by the van, inflicting many wounds, one of which, the fatal one to the back of the neck, caused instantaneous death. Shortly after the attack came to an end and, still near the scene of it, the appellant was arrested by Superintendent Kevin Brereton whom the appellant knew. He told the Superintendent "I had planned this for the past two weeks. Four people had to die. I went to the Gas Station, and bought two gallons of gas. That Reverend from down by you would not let me and my wife live good at all. The job ain’t done, I was going to burn down the house and then drink gramoxone". According to the Superintendent the appellant did say "I was not thinking straight".

 

5. At the police station the appellant was interviewed by Inspector Bynoe to whom he said: "The pastor is responsible for this. It is because of him that I kill my wife".

 

6. So much, in summary form, for the purely factual evidence relating to the killing. There was, however, further evidence of a medical nature offered for the consideration of the jury. It emerged that in July 1992 the

appellant had been admitted to the local psychiatric hospital and the admission document referred to "paranoia". The doctor who took part in the assessment of the appellant in 1992 happened to be the same doctor as certified the death of the victim, and he told the jury that paranoia was a "medical disorder characterised by delusions organised into a system, a rare chronic condition most people with such delusions would in time develop signs of other medical illnesses. The same term is sometimes used more loosely for a state of mind in which [the] individual has a strong belief that he is persecuted by others. His behaviour is therefore suspicious and isolated. … Delusions are part of the paranoia. He will imagine that somebody is coming to hurt or kill him". Unfortunately this doctor, Dr. Blair Bannister, did not examine the appellant again and could not, therefore, speak directly of the appellant’s mental condition at the time of the killing in 1994. No other doctor was instructed to carry out any psychiatric examination during 1994 save in relation to fitness to plead, and it was not until 1996 that another psychiatrist, Dr. Patricia Bannister was consulted by the defence. She had been a consultant at the psychiatric hospital. She testified that in April 1996, when she examined him, the appellant was suffering from a severe mental illness. Her diagnosis was schizophrenia. She said "I would say that on the 23rd May 1994 he was suffering from a disordered mind, and probably before that date. Even now he needs psychiatric care. This man did what he did and my opinion is that he did not know that the result would be his wife dying".

7. Carlisle Payne J. at an early stage in his summing up referred the jury to the defence of provocation, and accurately defined it as "some act or series of acts, done or words spoken which would cause any reasonable person, and actually causes in the accused, a sudden and temporary loss of self-control rendering the accused so subject to passion as to make him for the moment not master of his mind".

8. Criticism is made on behalf of the appellant that thereafter the judge did not direct the jury upon the concept of a reasonable man afflicted as the appellant was by a mental condition evidenced by the psychiatric evidence which came from Dr. Patricia Bannister. To that extent the direction on provocation was flawed (see Director of Public Prosecutions v. Camplin [1978] AC 705).

9. Their Lordships see the force of this submission but in their judgment it does not avail the appellant. It is inherent in the statutory definition of provocation that the provocative conduct or words should themselves induce "a sudden and temporary loss of self-control". There is no room for premeditation for, ex hypothesi, that is the antithesis of a sudden loss of self-control. On the facts, their Lordships conclude that this never was a case of provocation, and they are of the opinion that the appellant’s unchallenged admission that he had planned the killing for two weeks effectively destroyed any chance of a successful defence based on provocation. That part of the appeal, therefore, fails.

 

10. In the circumstances of this case their Lordships are very much more troubled by the issue of diminished responsibility and the judge’s treatment of it in the summing up.

 

11. Upon the uncontradicted medical evidence there can be no doubt that the appellant was mentally unwell in both 1992 and 1996. In their Lordships’ judgment the balance of probability must be that he was mentally unwell in 1994 when the killing took place.

 

12. The judge, in the summing up, first directed the jury by rehearsing the statutory definition of the defence. He reminded them that the question of whether the defence was made out was a matter for them and that they were entitled to take into account all the evidence. Objectively these directions were impeccable, but thereafter the judge made no comment upon the practical significance of the medical evidence or indeed of any evidence in the context of the mental responsibility of the appellant in doing the killing. Toward the end of the summing up the judge did, however, say this:-

"So that is the case for the defence, that all the circumstances point to insanity. The oral statements, the written statement, the extremely bizarre act committed by the accused on [3rd] May, 1994. All these circumstances reek of insanity."

 

13. It is unfortunate that the judge repeated counsel’s word "insanity", at any rate without explaining that insanity was not the issue. Its use, which was both unnecessary and

inappropriate, carried with it the risk that the jury would require too much from the defence before finding diminished responsibility. In their Lordships’ judgment the verdict might well have been tainted by this inaccurate approach.

 

14. The evidence taken as a whole did disclose bizarre behaviour though not necessarily insane behaviour; it did disclose serious mental illness in 1992 and 1996, before and after the killing, and it did disclose, through the testimony of Dr. Patricia Bannister, that at the time of the killing "this man did what he did" and in the uncontradicted opinion of the consultant psychiatrist "did not know that the result would be his wife dying". This evidence, in itself, was very powerful support for the defence of diminished responsibility.

 

15. Their Lordships are of the opinion that the jury did not receive the guidance in the summing up to which they were entitled. There was no emphasis of the significance of the subjective facts and the opinion of Dr. Patricia Bannister to the objective criteria of the defence advanced, and in all these circumstances their Lordships are driven to the conclusion that there has been a miscarriage of justice and the verdict should have been one of manslaughter on the ground of diminished responsibility.