Mohamed Aznin Bin Dato' Mohamed Ariff

On the court record

Mohamed Aznin Bin Dato' Mohamed Ariff appears in the corpus in serious criminal appeals in the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan), concentrated on homicide and the boundary between murder and culpable homicide. Two related appeals, appearing for the respondent, arose from convictions for both murder and the causing of grievous hurt. The court recorded that on the murder charge under 'seksyen 302 Kanun Keseksaan' (section 302 of the Penal Code) the accused had been sentenced to 'pemenjaraan selama 30 tahun dari tarikh tangkapan dan 12 sebatan' (imprisonment for 30 years from the date of arrest and 12 strokes of the cane), and that on the charge of intentionally causing grievous hurt under 'seksyen 326 Kanun Keseksaan' (section 326 of the Penal Code) the accused had been sentenced to a further term of 8 years' imprisonment and 5 strokes, to run after the completion of the murder sentence; the appeals turned on whether the evidence of the prosecution and defence witnesses had been sufficiently considered by the trial judge. A third appeal, appearing for the appellant, engaged the classic dividing line in homicide: the mens rea for murder under 'seksyen 300 Kanun Keseksaan' (section 300 of the Penal Code) as against culpable homicide under section 304(a), the defence of 'provokasi besar dan mengejut' (grave and sudden provocation), the significance of a 'tempoh bertenang' (cooling-off period), the distinction between a 'likely' and a 'most probable' result, and the reception of evidence of a fact discovered under section 27 of the Evidence Act 1950. The consecutive structure of the sentences in the first two appeals — a lengthy term for the murder followed by a further term and caning for the grievous hurt — shows how a single violent episode can attract cumulative punishment, and how much therefore rides on whether the trial judge properly weighed the whole of the evidence before convicting on each charge. Across the appearances the practice is that of appellate counsel engaged with the most serious offences against the person, where intention, provocation and the sufficiency of the evidence determine both conviction and sentence.