Wankuru Mwita versusThe Republic; Criminal Appeal No. 219 of 2012: Court of Appeal at Mwanza (Unreported).
- Appeals
- Appeals – under what circumstances the Court of Appeal may interfere with findings of facts.
- Evidence
- Identification –visual identification-when it can be relied upon to ground conviction?
- Witnesses – Contradiction of witnesses – Effect
Held:-
(i) The law is well settled that on second appeal, the Court will not readily disturb concurrent findings of facts by the trial court and the first appellate court unless it can be shown that they are perverse, demonstrably wrong or clearly unreasonable or are a result or a complete misapprehension of the substance, nature and quality of the evidence; misdirection or non – direction or the evidence; a violation of some principle of law of procedure or have occasioned a miscarriage of justice.
(ii) The law is well established that visual identification evidence is one of the weakest kind and in order to sustain a conviction it must be cogently established to the court’s satisfaction that the conditions are favourable for an accurate and water-tight identification of an accused and that it is free from all possibilities of mistaken identification.
(iii) It is trite that evidential contradictions should be noticed and resolved by the trial court. Depending on whether they are minor or serious and the extent to which they go to the root of the matter, they may or may not have an effect on the credibility and reliability of witnesses.