Julius Michael and 4 Others v. The Republic; Criminal Appeal No 264 of 2014: Court of Appeal of Tanzania at Arusha (Unreported).
- Evidence
- Estoppels – Application of the doctrine of estoppels in criminal trials.
- Evidence
- Murder – unnatural death must be proved
Held:-
(i) Where an issue of fact has been tried by a competent Court on a former occasion, and a finding has been reached in favour of the accused, such finding would constitute an estoppel against the prosecution, and thus evidence to disturb that finding of fact when the accused is tried subsequently, even for different offence, will not be received.
(ii) Where there is medical evidence and it does not exclude the possibility of death from natural causes, the task of the prosecution is very much harder and only in exceptional circumstances could a conviction for murder be sustained.