THE JUDGEMENT

 Appellants were found guilty and were sentenced to death on the murder and
robbery with exasperate circumstances.
 Both death sentences are unconstitutional if the first appellant’s appeal against
conviction fails the death sentence must be set aside.
 The first appellant has not appealed against the findings of Labuschagne. J, the
question lies with whether the court was right in finding that the second appellant
was another.
 According to case S v T. Makwanye and another 1995 (3) SA 391 (CC), the two
accused in this case were convicted in the Witwatersrand Local Division of the
supreme court on four counts of robbery with one count of attempted murder and
one count of robbery with inflame circumstances.
 The appellant division of the Supreme Court dismissed the appeals against the
conviction and sentences. It found that the circumstances of the murders were such
that the accused should receive the heaviest sentences permissible according to law.
 Section 221 (1) (a) of the criminal procedure Act prescribes that the death penalty is
a competent sentence for murder.
 The South African Supreme Court has been asked to decide whether the death
penalty is consistent within the provisions of the constitution.
 No executions have taken place in South Africa since 1989.Some of these convictions
date back to 1988 and about half of those on death row were sentenced.
 Section 11 (2) of the constitution prohibits “cruel inhuman or degrading treatment
or punishment” but there is no definition of what is to be regarded as cruel or
inhuman. We must give meaning to these words ourselves in terms of how we judge
and apply them.
 Therefore, in this case the evidence found has been carefully reviewed by the trial
Judge. Regarding stolen goods despite what was being said in the evidence the
second appellant said he was with the first appellant on that night.
 The challenge to admissibly was that the second appellant has been assaulted and
threatened not to voluntarily act freely by the police so the state evidence in the
trial within a trial was accepted but the evidence of the second appellant was
rejected.
 On appeal the challenge to admissibly was dropped, but there were two points
argued concerning the reliability of the state’s evidence.
 The recorded event by major Combrink pointing was correctly admitted it fully
shows the second appellant in the murder and robbery.
 Maseko and Mokoena’s evidence were considered by the trial court which was not
to be faulted for accepting it and the second appellant in the main trial was rightfully
rejected because it was not reasonably possibly true.
 The appeal against the second appellant’s murder conviction is dismissed
 Both appellants appeal against death sentences are upheld and the death sentence
are reserved.
 The case is remanded to the court a quo for competent sentences imposition on the
count of murder.