CORAM

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Mohammed Lawal Garba Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria

Adamu Jauro Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria

Obande Festus Ogbuinya Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria

Stephen Jonah Adah Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria

Abubakar Sadiq Umar Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria

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PARTIES

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JOHN ELUSA EHIKWE

APPELLANTS 

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THE STATE

RESPONDENTS 

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AREA(S) OF LAW

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AREAS OF LAW: CRIMINAL LAW, MURDER, CONSPIRACY, EVIDENCE, BURDEN OF PROOF, CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE, EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY, ALIBI, EVALUATION OF EVIDENCE, APPEAL, PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE

 

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SUMMARY OF FACTS

The Appellant, John Elusa Ehikwe, alongside three other accused persons, was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and murder of Mrs. Esther Uzoka on September 29, 2008, at Owa-Ofie Village in Owa-Oyibu, Delta State. The prosecution’s case was that the Appellant and three co-accused conspired and murdered the deceased.

Following an eyewitness report which implicated all four accused persons, the Nigerian Police Force arrested them. Upon conclusion of investigation, they were arraigned before the trial court for offences of conspiracy to commit murder and murder punishable under Sections 324 and 319 of the Criminal Code Cap 48 Vol. II Laws of the defunct Bendel State applicable in Delta State.

The prosecution called five witnesses (PW1 to PW5) who testified. The star witness was PW1, Kenneth Dumbir, a farmer, who testified that on the morning of September 29, 2008, while checking his trap along Abavo/Warri Road, he saw the Appellant running out of the deceased’s compound with blood-stained hands and a knife (dagger). He witnessed the Appellant clean the knife with grass and put it behind his waist belt. When the accused persons left, PW1 went to the compound and found the deceased in a pool of blood with a bicycle laid on her body.

Medical evidence indicated that the cause of death was “a sharp laceration below the deceased’s jaw.” Each of the accused persons testified in their defense. The Appellant raised a defense of alibi, claiming he was elsewhere at the time of the crime and provided details of persons and places he visited in Owa-Ofie village between 6:30am and 10:30am that morning.

On March 11, 2011, the trial court found all four accused persons guilty, convicted them on both counts, and sentenced them to death by hanging. The Appellant appealed to the Court of Appeal, Benin Division, which dismissed the appeal and affirmed the trial court’s judgment on June 14, 2018. Further dissatisfied, the Appellant appealed to the Supreme Court.

 

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HELD

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1. The appeal was dismissed.

2. The Court held that the evidence was properly evaluated by the lower courts and was compelling enough to ground the conviction of the appellant.

3. The Court found that the eyewitness testimony of PW1 was cogent, compelling, uncontroverted, and devoid of cloudiness regarding what he observed on the day of the crime.

4. The Court held that there was sufficient circumstantial evidence to prove the appellant’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

5. The Court found that the appellant’s defense of alibi was properly investigated by the police and found to be untrue, and was therefore correctly rejected by the lower courts.

6. The Court held that where there is ample evidence fixing an accused at the scene of crime, there is no need for police to investigate alibi.

7. The judgment of the Court of Appeal, Benin Division, delivered on June 14, 2018, was affirmed.

 

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ISSUES

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1. Having regard to the totality of the evidence adduced, was the evidence adduced properly evaluated by the Court of Appeal for it to be held compelling to ground the conviction of appellant?

2. Was the Court of Appeal right in concluding that circumstantial evidence has been sufficiently made out and shown to be irresistibly conclusive and certain that appellant’s guilt was proved beyond reasonable doubt?

3. Whether the Court of Appeal which affirmed the decision of the trial Court gave adequate consideration to the defence of alibi set up by the appellant and was right in rejecting same?

 

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RATIONES DECIDENDI

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EVALUATION OF EVIDENCE IN CRIMINAL CASES – PRIMARY DUTY OF TRIAL COURT

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This law is now trite that the evaluation of the totality of evidence adduced by the parties in proof and defence of a case before a Court of law, is the primary duty and function of the trial Court before which witnesses physically testified or documents are directly tendered and admitted in evidence, in the first instance. The trial Court therefore has the unique opportunity and enjoys the privilege of seeing, hearing and observing such witnesses and first considering documents tendered in evidence to enable it to fully and properly appraise the facts in the pleadings and assess the evidence given thereon for the purpose of ascribing probative value, worth or weight, drawing the requisite inferences, making findings and reaching deserving decisions/conclusions in the case – Per STEPHEN JONAH ADAH, J.S.C.

 

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EVALUATION PROCESS – WEIGHING EVIDENCE ON IMAGINARY SCALE

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In brief, the trial Court places all the evidence adduced by the parties on the two (2) sides of the judicial imaginary scale of justice to weigh; by way of credibility, relevance, probability and conclusiveness on the facts in dispute, and find out which side of the scale outweighs the other, based, not on the quantity, but the quality, in law, of the evidence. That is what the primary duty of evaluation of evidence by a trial Court involves and entails.– Per STEPHEN JONAH ADAH, J.S.C.

 

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DISTINCTION IN EVIDENCE EVALUATION – CRIMINAL VERSUS CIVIL CASES

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It is of dire necessity to underline the fact that evaluation of evidence is relative to the nature of the case. In civil cases, a case is won on the preponderance of evidence and where a party’s case does not measure up in weight and substance, the party’s case will fail. In criminal cases, evidence is not valued by weight but by its credibility and quality. – Per STEPHEN JONAH ADAH, J.S.C.

 

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STANDARD OF PROOF BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT – CLARIFICATION

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It must be stated and emphasized that proof beyond all reasonable doubt does not mean or import or connote beyond any degree of certainty. The term strictly means that within the bounds of evidence adduced and staring the Court in the face, no tribunal of justice worth its salt would convict on it having regard to the nature of the evidence led and the law marshalled out in the case. It can be said that evidence in a criminal trial that is susceptible to doubt cannot be said to have attained the height or standard of proof that can be said to be beyond all reasonable doubt. – Per STEPHEN JONAH ADAH, J.S.C.

 

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PROOF BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT – RATIONAL EXAMINATION REQUIRED

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Regardless of what one might think in a given state of affairs in a given case, neither suspicion nor speculation or intuition can be a substitute for a proof beyond all reasonable doubt. It is a proof that precludes all reasonable inference or assumption except that which it seeks to support and must have the clarity of proof that is readily consistent with the guilt of the person, the expression beyond all reasonable doubt should not be susceptible to any ungainly and abstract construction or understanding. A priori, it is a concept founded on reason and rational and critical examination of a state of facts and law rather than a fanciful, whimsical or capricious and speculative doubt.” – Per STEPHEN JONAH ADAH, J.S.C.

 

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INTERFERENCE WITH CONCURRENT FINDINGS – LIMITED CIRCUMSTANCES

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It should be kept within our focus that our law is settled that when there is concurrent findings of the two lower Courts, this Court can only disturb concurrent findings of fact by two lower Courts where there is clear proof of error of either law or fact on record or that the decision was perverse. Where there is sufficient evidence to support the concurrent findings of fact by the two lower Courts, such findings will not be disturbed except there is a significant error which has caused a miscarriage of justice. – Per STEPHEN JONAH ADAH, J.S.C.

 

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NATURE OF ALIBI DEFENCE – COMPLETE DEFENCE REQUIRING EARLY RAISING

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‘Alibi’, under our criminal law and procedural law refers to a defence whereby an accused person claims that he was not at the scene of the crime at the time the crime was committed and therefore, could not have been responsible for the commission of the offence. If alibi is successfully proven, it exonerates the accused. For this defence to be considered, the accused must raise it early in the case to enable the Police to investigate it and for the Court to consider it. – Per STEPHEN JONAH ADAH, J.S.C.

 

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INVESTIGATION OF ALIBI – PRECISION AND SPECIFICITY REQUIRED

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It is a cardinal rule that a person intending to plead alibi, must raise the defence at the first possible opportunity in answer to a charge by the Police at the investigation stage to enable the truth or falsity of the allegation to be established by the Police. In raising it, the accused must be precise and specific in terms of place and time. – Per STEPHEN JONAH ADAH, J.S.C.

 

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INVESTIGATION OF ALIBI – NOT MANDATORY WHERE AMPLE EVIDENCE EXISTS

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It should be underlined however, that the defence of alibi does not automatically exonerate an accused person. It is also not absolutely mandatory that the defence must be investigated in all circumstances… Where there is ample evidence to fix an accused at the scene of the crime, there would be no need for the Police to investigate alibi… There would be no need for the Investigating Police Officers to investigate an alibi if there is overwhelming evidence against the accused person that he participated in the crime. – Per STEPHEN JONAH ADAH, J.S.C.

 

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COGENT EYEWITNESS EVIDENCE – DISPLACEMENT OF REASONABLE DOUBT

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The cogent, credible and unchallenged evidence of PW1; an eyewitness, had dispelled any iota of reasonable doubt that the Appellant was not only physically at the scene of the murder of the diseased at the material time, but also, was a participe criminis in the commission of the heinous crime. – Per MOHAMMED LAWAL GARBA, J.S.C.

 

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ALIBI DISPROVED BY CREDIBLE EVIDENCE – NON-FATAL POLICE FAILURE

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Failure by the police to investigate the said plea of alibi is not fatal to the Respondent’s case since the Appellant was factually fixed at the scene of the offence by credible and sufficient evidence of eye witnesses. – Per MOHAMMED LAWAL GARBA, J.S.C.

 

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ALIBI DISABLED BY UNCHALLENGED EVIDENCE – COMPLETE DEFENCE PRINCIPLE

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It is a rudimentary law that the defence of alibi, which the law bequeathed to an accused person, is a complete defence because where it is established, an accused will absolved of the alleged crime. However, the defence is disabled in the face of unchallenged evidence that locates an accused as the perpetrator of a crime. – Per OBANDE FESTUS OGBUINYA, J.S.C.

 

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ALIBI DEMOLISHED BY SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE – LOGICAL AND PHYSICAL DEMOLITION

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There is nothing extraordinary or esoteric in a plea of alibi. Such a plea of alibi postulates that the accused person could have been at the scene of the crime and only inferentially that he was not there. Even if it is the duty of the prosecution to check, on a statement of alibi by an accused persons and disprove the alibi or attempt to do so, there is no inflexible and/or invariable way of doing this. If the prosecution adduce sufficient and acceptable evidence to fix the person at the scene of crime at the material time, surely his alibi is thereby logically and physically demolished. – Per ABUBAKAR SADIQ UMAR, J.S.C.

 

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CASES CITED

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STATUTES REFERRED TO

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1. Criminal Code Cap 48 Vol. II Laws of the defunct Bendel State (Sections 324, 319)

2. Evidence Act 2011 (Sections 9(b), 135)

3. Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (Section 36(5))

 

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OTHER CITATIONS

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