DANIEL YOUTH Vs. KING

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Their Lordships have already indicated that they would humbly advise His Majesty that this appeal should be dismissed and that they would give their reasons for tendering such advice in due course. Those reasons are set out below. The appellant and his wife Amelia Youth were jointly charged on indictment in the Supreme Court of Turks and Caicos Islands before His Honour S. T. B. Sanguinetti and a jury of twelve with the murder of one Poland Smith in the Parish of Saint George at the Bight of Blue Hills. Both pleaded not guilty but were convicted and sentenced to death: the wife's sentence however was afterwards commuted to penal servitude for life. The husband alone appealed first to the Supreme Court of Judicature of Jamaica and subsequently by special leave to His Majesty in Council. The appellant lived in a small settlement on Caicos Island called Thomas Stubbs Settlement which appears to have consisted of only three houses: one inhabited by the appellant and his wife, the next by the deceased man, his wife and family, and the third by the dead man's mother-in-law. There was ample evidence of bad blood between the appellant and the deceased and indeed that the appellant threatened to get him out of the Settlement and had been heard to say with reference to him "Something is going to happen serious." Some miles to the west of this Settlement lies another and larger settlement known as Bight Settlement, a road or path joins the two Settlements, and from this road a track leads to the seashore which is about half to two-thirds of a mile distant. The dead man was accustomed to pay a visit each Sunday afternoon to friends at the Bight Settlement and on Sunday, 6 July 1942, as usual he left his house about 5 o'clock and visited one James Pratt, who lived two or three miles away. He arrived about 6 P. M., left about 10 P.m , but never reached his home. On Tuesday, 7 July 1942, his dead body was found floating in the sea some distance to the west of the Bight Settlement. Death apparently was not due to drowning but to a combination of injuries which had been inflicted upon him: they consisted of three scalp wounds towards the back of the head, a jagged wound below the left car and a cut through the right side of the lower jaw penetrating through the inferior maxilla. Though the last mentioned wound would cause profuse bleeding, the blood would not, necessarily be on the assailant. Later the same day at a spot lying just off the track mentioned above a sandy clearing was found, bloodstained and trampled and marked by foot-prints. The clearing was about one mile from Thomas Stubbs Settlement and 21 chains, from the shore.

(2.) The bloodstains continued for about 200 yards to the beach and on the beach were found two sets of footprints as if two persons walked face to face sideways to the sea. The two sets were about two feet apart heavily indented, as if a weight was being carried and between them at one spot was a collection of blood. One set was larger than the other. According to the evidence the appellant and his wife left home a long time after the dead man, walking in the direction which he had taken towards the Bight Settlement. At sun-rise the following morning Amelia Youth was seen coming from the direction in which she and her husband had gone the previous evening and shortly afterwards the appellant came from the same direction towards his house. That same morning a farmer living at Bight Settlement saw two persons coming eastwards along the beach about 4 A. M. After they saw him the two turned back in the direction of Stubbs Settlement, but he was unable to identify who they were. On the same day there was found on the floor of the Youth's house a machete without a handle which could have caused the wound on the right-hand side of the dead man's face, but no blood was in fact found on it. The two accused were seen by the police about 3 P. M. on 7 July and the appellant then had a bruise over his left cheek, scratches on his throat, and a dark stain on his shirt. The stain was not from blood and is immaterial. The explanation given by the appellant and his wife as to the other injuries was that they had had a quarrel the night before in the course of which he had struck his face against the room door and she had scratched him. After this interview the appellant, who was wearing an old blue shirt and pants, asked leave to go home to change his clothes and started on his way but was called back and thereupon ran away and hid himself. He was subsequently arrested the game day, but again escaped and was finally re-arrested on 11 July. Meanwhile his wife was arrested and kept in custody.

(3.) Later on, viz., on 22nd July, in consequence of certain information which had been received one of the local constables and a clerk went to the Youths' house and searched in a field about 40 feet beyond a wall which stood east of the house, and was itself 15 to 20 feet from the house. The appellant used this field for planting corn, potatoes, and such like purposes and in it the constable found a dump of dry bush which had apparently been gathered together and upon which a few small stones had been placed. Underneath he found two cave holes going down vertically into the rook and in them were two sticks or clubs. The larger one had upon it diffused stains of human blood. The smaller was also smeared with blood, but it was impossible to say whether this blood was or was not human blood as the quantity found was two small to enable a conclusion to be reached. Either of the two sticks might have caused the injury at the back of the head inasmuch as the wounds found on the deceased man, except that which cut through the jaw, must have been caused by a blunt instrument or by the head coming in contact with a hard surface, e.g., stone or wood. The matters set out above constitute the evidence admissible against the appellant. The information however which led to the discovery of the sticks or clubs came from the female accused and is contained in the statement set out below : "On Saturday 4 July 1942 I and my husband Daniel Youth who is commonly called General had a little fight, and he knocked his face just above his eyes on the side of the house, all these scratches that he has on his face now were not there on Saturday. My husband did not sleep home on Sunday night 5 July 1942, he went out just about sunset, and he never came home until Monday morning. About 10 A. M. my husband on Monday morning left to go for conchs, and he returned home at or about 1 o'clock. My husband then said to me you see Poland home? I said to him I am not looking out for Poland. He replied to me you wont see that damn bitch back in Thomas Stubbs, he said I done murder his ass out last night and dragged him in the sea. I did not believe him at first so he went to eastward and he brought a lignumvitae stick a big stick full up with blood and he said this is the stick that I killed him with. I said to him General you should not have killed Poland out like that and he said to me you aint glad, that damn bitch out of Thomas Stubbs so you can live in peace and he tell me if I talk it he was going to carry me cross to northward and kill me and put me in the hole he said just how he murdered Poland be would murder me the same way. The same day when we heard that Poland Smith was murdered he sent Rosina my sister in the field to get some corn and while she was gone he tell me dont mind what James Pratt and them tell me I must tell them nothing because if I do he will still kill me how he tell me before. He carried the stick in the cave hole to eastward of the house in the fleld. Sunday night he bad on one abort old pair of oznaburg pants and one old blue shirt and waistcoat. He told me he lay way for. Poland down in the road and the first stroke he gave him was on his head to knock all his senses away from him. I am telling you how to get the stick its on the east side of my house in the banana bottom some potatce slips and then there are some rocks and near that is the cave hole. (Sgd.) AMELIA YOUTH."