A former law student who was convicted and sentenced to 7 years in jail, for being involved in a drunken brawl that led to the death of another student, yesterday represented himself in court and made submissions.
Tande Joseph appeared before Deputy Chief Justice Sir Gibbs Salika, Justices Stephen Kassman and Robert Lindsay, and made submissions to the court on 11 grounds of appeal against his conviction and sentence of 7 years.
The Supreme Court reserved its ruling to a later date.
He submitted to the court that the trial judge, when convicting him on April 15, 2015, did not properly assess evidence before him and made errors of law in his decision.
He said the evidence in court, during the trial, was vague and inconclusive.
Evidence of State witnesses did not correlate to the medical evidence before the court and despite being given a good pre-sentence report by probation officers; he received a sentence of 7 years.
Counsel for the State submitted no errors were made in setting out the elements of manslaughter, which he was convicted for after a trial was conducted on a higher charge of murder.
Joe Apo, from the Public Prosecutor’s office, said the evidence is three people were involved in a drunken brawl where one died from injuries sustained.
He said the judge compared medical evidence of pathologists and state witnesses, and convicted him. 7 years was not an unreasonable period of time and the court should dismiss the review of conviction.
Joseph and co-accused, Peter Martin, were third year law students when they were involved in a drunken brawl with Obediah Igish, a third year anthropology student, at the University’s bus stop towards the end of the second semester of 2012.
Igish died as a result of the injuries sustained from the brawl.
They were convicted by the Waigani National Court on April 15, 2015, and sentenced on August 21, 2015, to 7 years in jail.