S v Letsolo

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Judge: van Blerk JA, Holmes JA and Wessels JA
• Judgment Date: 18 May 1970
• Citation: 1970 (3) SA 476 (A)
• Hearing Date: 04 May 1970
• Court: Appellate Division

F Holmes, J.A.:

I agree with the judgment of my Brother WESSELS, and wish only to make the following few general remarks -

Extenuating circumstances have more than once been defined by this Court as any facts, bearing on the commission of the crime, which reduce the G moral blameworthiness of the accused, as distinct from his legal culpability. In this regard a trial Court has to consider -

(a)

whether there are any facts which might be relevant to extenuation, such as immaturity, intoxication or provocation (the list is not exhaustive);

(b)

whether such facts, in their cumulative effect, probably had a bearing on the accused's state of mind in doing what he did;

(c)

H whether such bearing was sufficiently appreciable to abate the moral blameworthiness of the accused in doing what he did.

In deciding (c) the trial Court exercises a moral judgment. If its answer is yes, it expresses its opinion that there are extenuating circumstances.

Such an opinion having been expressed, the trial Judge has a discretion, to be exercised judicially on a consideration of all relevant facts including the criminal record of the accused, to decide whether it

Wessels JA

would be appropriate to take the drastically extreme step of ordering him to forfeit his life; or whether some alternative, short of this incomparably utter extreme, would sufficiently satisfy the deterrent, punitive and reformative aspects of sentence. The possibility of such an A alternative should be considered by the trial Judge, in view of the words 'the court may impose any sentence other than the death sentence' in the proviso to sec. 330 (1) of the Code. And it should be weighed with the most anxious deliberation, for it is, literally, a matter of life and death. Every relevant consideration should receive the most B scrupulous care and reasoned attention; and all the more so because the sentence is unalterable on appeal, save on an improper exercise of judicial discretion, that is to say unless the sentence is vitiated by irregularity or misdirection or is disturbingly inappropriate.

Judgment

Wessels, J.A.:

Appellant and one Derman Dira appeared before VILJOEN, C J., and assessors in the Witwatersrand Local Division on a charge of murder. Dira was acquitted. Appellant was convicted of murder with extenuating circumstances. It appears from the judgment of VILJOEN, J., that the finding that appellant had murdered the deceased was that of the...