The Trial!

Patched window blinds – a half broken wooden door and age-old bleachers, in courtroom 4 of the Cocoa Affairs Court, Thursday April 2012, greeted Andrew’s family, friends and co-workers.

Premises of the cocoa affairs court (photo)
The 29-year old research assistant at the African Center for Excellence (ACE) was standing trial for what the state prosecutor described as a crime; manslaughter!

He had carelessly left the couple’s two-month old daughter in the backseat of the car to die following a botched bet. It was six days to Christmas that year when Poky (Andrew’s wife) travelled – leaving the baby in his care.

The night before, Asante Kotoko were dumped out of the FA cup by minnows Fankobaah FC – a game Andrew had placed a bet, but lost in excess of twenty two thousand cedis. That morning, he was confused – he was so close yet too far. His state of disorientation was visible. His hair looked unkempt, his shoes, half-cleaned and his shirt, stained with dark hair gloss.

Jo, the maid, was up early, preparing two-month old Binta for school; she was the couple’s only daughter from their two-year marriage. She laid little Binta in the backseat as usual with extra clothes and sanitary towels; she was ready for school.

Still haunted by the previous night’s bet-loss, Andrew drove out at 180km/h from their Trassaco flat in Accra, straight to his office. He thought he had dropped the baby off at school; as he’d been doing since Poky travelled.

The toddler slowly sweltered to death, strapped into a car seat for nine hours in an office parking lot - death by hyperthermia was the official condition, a nurse at the Ridge hospital confirmed.

He didn’t notice until he rushed after 3 o’clock to pick her up at Sunbeams Day Care. He was reminded he hadn’t dropped Binta at school that morning.

He went to the car and there Binta lay, innocently in her cot, looking dehydrated, her eyes sunken. She had died of excessive temperature.

It was an inexplicable, inexcusable mistake, but was it a crime? That was the question for a judge of the court to determine.

The trial was set to begin Monday - as the most excruciating of the evidence came from the medical examiner, Andrew in a transfixing emotional frankness stood gripped by his own guilt.

‘The lower portion of the baby’s body was red-purple; a green discoloration of the abdomen . . . autolysis of the organs . . . the core body temperature reached 108 degrees,’ read the detailed medical

report by the prosecutor in court.
Andrew stood in the dock – trembling. He spotted a grey polo shirt over a pair of formfitting faded blue jeans. Hands clasped over his knees, while his toes peeked through the leather slippers he wore. His toes seemed feminine, perhaps because they belonged to feet that were always in shoes.

He was 6ft.5, heavy-set and slightly overweight. His confused fear coupled with anxiety made his eyelids quiver. His crossed eyes were visible as he figured out how to get out of what he thought was an embarrassment, a huge family shame!

He occasionally hunched forward in the sturdy wooden enclosure sobbing softly into a towel, with his legs bouncing nervously.

The court had just heard its fourth case that day and presumably the clerk, administrator and prosecutor were tired.

Witnesses were assembled and interviewed. Efforts at a plea bargain by defense counsel, failed.

The trial began.
Andrew had been arraigned before the court presided over by His honour J. A Obiri Yeboah Asante (esq). The state was charging him for manslaughter according to the criminal code of 1960.

Justice Obiri Yeboah sat in his chambers that afternoon, unprepared for the trial. His court administrator said to him, "the witnesses have given their statements - two of them are yet to report in court. They may be stuck up in traffic.”

It was a half-filled courtroom. The pews were occupied by spectators (some taking notes) who had sat through the previous case involving two car-snatchers and a businessman from whom they stole a 2013 Toyota Camry make. The 50-year-old judge walked slowly into courtroom.

In the gravity of his sorrow and shame, Andrew cut a forlorn figure but he seemed larger still. He had hired Lawyer Arnold Ampaw weeks before both sides developed their cases – his counsel had advised Andrew’s family, neighbours and close associates to testify about the fatherly nature of his client.

Witnesses spoke softly of events so painfully that many lost their composure.

The court heard how the defendant and his wife had been the toast of town during their lavish wedding – which attracted the crème de la crème of the fashion industry.

Andrew’s wife was a top celebrity stylist, a fashion entrepreneur and a designer! She was petite – with an oval face, her eyes were large and slanted. Despite her size, she was curvy and fleshy in many vital areas.

Andrew's neighbour testified how she'd watched the new father frolic on the lawn in the frontage of their home with his son every evening while she passed by from work. She recounted the many times she’d halt at the hollow fencing, whistle till she caught Andrew’s attention, and then waved.

His sister testified how she had worked with her brother and sister-in-law for weeks, to find the ideal day-care situation for the baby.

Poky was contracted to style actress Yvonne Nelson and her sixteen-member cast who were on-set shooting a new TV series at the time and also had gigs to design outfits for other female celebrities, nominated for the National Youth Awards (NYA) slated for later that month.

KOP is Andrew’s colleague at the office. They both support Asante Kotoko and appear to get along quite pretty. He was one of the few colleagues who sympathized with Andrew on his bet loss – the morning of the incident.

He testified how Andrew waxed lyrical about being a father and how he swore he was going to give his daughter the best education – the best things in life! He recounted the toast they made at the Employees’ Night party the previous week. The two, vowed to keep their homes united for the long haul.

The Ridge hospital emergency room nurse – dark brown-skinned, with flaxen hair who was at post the day the baby was brought to the hospital, described how the defendant had behaved after the police first brought him in.

He was literally unresponsive and deflated, she remembered his eyes shut tight, his hair in a mess, barefooted and locked away in some profound torment.

He would not speak at all, until the nurse sank down beside him, held his hand and whispered into his ear some reassuring words.

It was only then that the patient began to open up - and what he said was that he didn't deserve a respite from pain, he didn’t want to fight it, that he wanted to feel it all, suffer the pain and then die.

He was almost losing his mind, the nurse recounted.

The courtroom went dead with eerie silence. The sorrow on the faces of the spectators and the chill in their expression was loud!

Sunlight streamed in through the windows of the courtroom, eastwards from the Arts Center end of the compass. Everyone; Andrew, Poky, the witnesses, family, co-workers were choked with expectation - unsure what sort of decision to expect.

Three days of hearing passed and in a five-minute judgment……the court found Andrew not guilty. As tragic as the child's death was, a police investigation showed that there was no crime because there was no intent; Andrew wasn't callously gambling with the child's life -- he had genuinely forgotten the child was there.

The judge showed legendary leadership in the circumstance.

Max DePree, a leadership advocate is noted to have famously said leadership ‘is an art.’ According to him, the first responsibility of a leader is to define reality, the last is to say thank you.

However, in between, the leader must be a servant. The judge had demonstrated this. It was clearer when he said during the judgment: “…I actually made the right decision. The easy thing in a case like this is to dump it on a jury, but that is not the right thing to do. A prosecutor's responsibility is to achieve justice, not to settle some sort of score.”

“There are many things common to us all as humans – birth, death and a lifetime full of mistakes, errors and gaffes. No one expects us to be right all the time, but when we are wrong, they expect us to own up to it,” he quoted Marshall Goldsmith’s popular admonishment.

Andrew has shown remorse – he has owned up to his gaffe, the court judge added.

“Hopefully, you can go back home, recover from this experience and make more children,” Justice Obiri noted.

He elected to keep the family still knit – he wondered how a convicted Andrew would get his life back on the races, and have more children. Maybe never!

Outside the courtroom, was an assembly of pressmen waiting to interview him.

Mabel Mensah of the Daily Graphic narrated how Justice Obiri ruled the marriage between a young couple who were filing for a divorce, undissolved after the man, 30, had accused his wife of flirting several times in their marriage.

The couple had a two-year old son. Despite the hearing in-camera, facts available to the newspaper indicated the court ruled that the two stayed together.

The court in a judgment that fateful day stated that, “the life of the two-year old may be in jeopardy if the two were divorced and may result in the upbringing of a social deviant, who would pose a credible threat to society.”

Justice Obiri further added in that famous ruling that considering the financial status of the wife and the busy schedule of the husband, none of them on their own could raise the child decently.

While the court correspondents waited for Andrew and his family to emerge from the court door, they discussed the ruling.

The pressmen agreed – a leader is one who understands that mistakes and failures like those of [Andrew, other defendants and respondents in court], surface from all corners of life and therefore should be treated as isolated and redeemable instances rather than fatal flaws.

They argued sometimes the best way to correct behavior is not to openly punish the wrong behavior but to use the situation as a platform for building self-confidence and deeper connection.

In 2010, a circuit court judge Bentum Asare found 32-year old Ephraim guilty of manslaughter when his negligence left his five-month old baby dead in his car. He had drunk to stupor that night when he managed to drive home.

He dragged himself into bed only to wake up the next day to find his baby dead after twelve hours. A twelve-year sentence was handed down to him by the court which held that he had acted negligently.

After the sentence, his 28-year old wife dashed out of the courtroom, made for their home where she parked everything and vacated her marital home. Their marriage was ruined!

As Justice Obiri Yeboah rose; he made for the dock where Andrew stood face-in-palms.

He threw his broad arms around Andrew’s shoulder and said, “…to show you I am sure that you’ll never be this careless nor forgetful, I want you to counsel my 25-year old son, who is having marital issues, just maybe you could change that little thing – so their marriage works again.”

Andrew composed himself and made for the press area flanked by his adorable wife and other relations.

“I stand before you all today – a free man, vowing never to forget these past days. I have learnt valuable life lessons. From here, I look to take up a part-time role as a volunteer counselor,” the teary-eyed Andrew carefully articulated.

Life had just taken a different turn for him – and for the better, somehow he had his life back!

Author/Writer: Kingsley Komla Adom