MARIETTE LE ROUX, Bloemfontein | Thursday
GRAEME Michael Eadie on Wednesday lost a bid in the Supreme Court of Appeal to have a murder conviction and 10-year jail term overturned for beating a man to death in a fit of apparent ”road rage” in June 1999.
Appeal Judge Mohamed Navsa rejected Eadie’s defence of temporary criminal incapacity, saying he had merely lost his temper and clearly had the intention to kill.
In his defence, Eadie had claimed he was unable to distinguish between right and wrong at the time of the attack as a result of a combination of severe emotional stress, provocation and a measure of intoxication.
”It appears to me to be clear … that the appellant (Eadie) lost his temper and did not lose control over his actions,” Navsa said.
”The appellant had the necessary intention to kill, particularly if regard were had to the viciousness of the attack.
”When he gave vent to his anger and engaged in the savage attack directing blows and kicks at the head of the deceased he must have foreseen the resulting death of the deceased.”
In the early morning hours of June 12, 1999, Eadie and his wife were returning home from a party after picking up their two sons.
On Ou Kaapseweg near Fish Hoek, Eadie says he spotted headlights in his rear-view mirror, whereafter a car overtook him on a double-barrier line. As he rounded a bend, Eadie claims to have noticed the same vehicle, a Toyota Corolla, now driving very slowly (about 40km/h).
Eadie overtook the Corolla, which then drove right up to his car’s bumper with the headlights on bright. Eadie drove faster to get away, but the Corolla kept up the pursuit and overtook him again.
Eadie claims the Corolla then braked right in front of his car, at which point he became angry and fearful for the safety of his family. Eadie overtook the Corolla again and tried to get away.
At a red robot, the Corolla stopped behind his car. Eadie took his hockey stick out of the car, and walked over to the Corolla. He hit at the driver, Kevin Andrew Duncan, with the stick, beat him with his fists and kicked him.
Duncan died of fractures to the facial bones and skull, which a pathologist said must have been caused by a considerable degree of blunt force. Eadie broke Duncan’s nose by stamping on it with his heal.
Eadie (37) was convicted of murder in the Cape High Court in November 2000, and sentenced to 15 years in jail, of which five years were suspended.
He was also convicted of attempting to defeat the ends of justice by removing the hockey stick from the scene of the crime and throwing it into thick bushes, and for showing the police a different pair of jeans than the blood-splattered pair he had had on. He was sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment on this charge, ordered to run concurrently with the murder sentence.
The Appeal Court found that Eadie was subjected to provocation and other stressors, but not more so than scores of people ”who do not resort to this kind of behaviour”.
”The sensations experienced by him during and immediately after the assault are not unusual in persons who are extremely angry,” Navsa said.
There was no doubt Duncan had behaved badly, but Eadie clearly did not act in a state of automatism — a state rarely encountered.
Navsa warned courts to be careful in future to rely on sound evidence when ruling in cases with similar defences.
There was confusion on the application of the test for criminal incapacity, and court sometimes wrongly showed sympathy for murderers either because of the circumstances in which an offence was committed or because the victim was a ”particularly vile human being”.
Part of the problem appeared to be a too ready acceptance of an accused’s version of his state of mind, Navsa said.
Courts had to be careful not to confuse loss of temper with loss of control.
”The message that must reach society is that consciously giving in to one’s anger or to other emotions and endangering the lives of motorists or other members of society will not be tolerated and will be met with the full force of the law,” Navsa said.
”No self-respecting system of law can excuse persons from criminal liability on the basis that they succumbed to temptation.”
Appeal Judges Pierre Olivier and Piet Streicher concurred. – Sapa