JOSEPH DANIEL V FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA

Legalpedia Citation: (2015-05) Legalpedia 17937 (CA)

In the Supreme Court of Nigeria

Holden At Abuja

Tue May 12, 2015

Suit Number: SC.162/2011

CORAM

Suleiman Galadima Justice, Supreme Court

Mary Ukaego Peter-Odili Justice, Supreme Court

Olukayode Ariwoola Justice, Supreme Court

Musa Dattijo Muhammad Justice, Supreme Court

Chima Centus Nweze Justice, Supreme Court

PARTIES

JOSEPH DANIEL

APPELLANTS

FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA

RESPONDENTS

AREA(S) OF LAW

APPEAL, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE, EVIDENCE, PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE

SUMMARY OF FACTS

The appellant had been arraigned before the trial Federal High Court, Lagos Judicial Division, holden at Lagos, was charged with committing an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 10(c) of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Act, Cap. 253, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 1990 by dealing in 2.6 kilogrammes of Indian hemp otherwise known as Cannabis Sativa, a drug similar to Cocaine, Heroine, LSD without authorization. The charge was read to the accused in the presence of both Counsel – Mrs F. N. Ajagu for the prosecution and Mrs Lilian Omotunde for the accused. The accused pleaded guilty to the charge and the prosecutor proceeded with the facts. She tendered various documents including the Statement of the accused and the recovered substance. They were admitted by the court and marked as Exhibits A, B, C, D, E, F, and G respectively.

The trial Judge ruled that there being no search warrant for the search which was conducted in the accused person’s house, the said search was unconstitutional and therefore the recovered substance cannot be used against the accused. The charge was dismissed with a consequential order that the recovered substance be destroyed by burning, and the accused was accordingly discharged. The prosecution was dissatisfied with the decision of the trial court hence proceeded with an appeal.

In its reserved considered judgment, the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal by setting aside the decision of the trial Federal High Court. Accordingly, the case was remitted to the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Federal Capital Territory, Abuja for reassignment to another Judge of the Court for trial on merits denovo. The decision of the Court of Appeal did not go down well with the respondent, and that led to the instant appeal.

HELD

Appeal dismissed

ISSUES

1. Whether the Court of Appeal was right in declining to make a determination on the issue of discretion provided under Section 218 of the Criminal Procedure Act not to convict if there shall appear sufficient cause to the contrary and thereby occasioned a miscarriage of justice?

RATIONES DECIDENDI

ISSUES – CONDUCT OF PARTIES IN FORMULATING ISSUES FOR DETERMINATION – CONDUCT OF COURTS WHERE NO ISSUE HAS BEEN FORMED FROM SOME/ANY GROUND OF APPEAL

Generally, it is trite law and as I had stated before in yet another case in this court, issues are not meant to be distilled from each ground of appeal but may be raised or formulated from a combination of the essential complaints of the appellant in the grounds of appeal. As a result, issues must necessarily relate to facts or law decided by the court whose decision is appealed against. In other words, it is normal and ideal to formulate an Issue from more than one ground of appeal but where this is not done, just one issue may be raised from one ground of appeal. See; African Intercontinental Bank Ltd v. Integrated Dimensional System Ltd & Ors (2012) 17 NWLR (Pt. 1328) 1, (2012) 11 SCM 1; (2012) 5 SCNJ 221; (2012) 50 NSCQR, 434. However, in the instant case, as I stated earlier, the sole issue of the appellant was distilled from only ground three, while no issue was formulated from grounds one and two of the grounds of appeal, meaning that the other two grounds 1 and 2 have been abandoned. It is trite law that any ground of appeal from which no issue has been distilled and upon which no argument has been canvassed is deemed abandoned by an appellant and deserves to be struck out and should be struck out. See: Madam Akon Iyoho v. E.P.E Effiong Esq. (2007) 11 NWLR (Pt.1044) 31; (2007) 4 SC (Pt.111) 90; (2007) 8 SCM 21. – Per Olukayode Ariwoola, JSC

PLEA – THE EFFECT WHEN THE ACCUSED PLEADS GUILTY TO AN OFFENCE

What then does the Law say on the effect of plea of guilty by a person charged with a criminal offence? Section 218 of the Criminal Procedure Act states thus: "If the accused pleads guilty to any offence with which he is charged, the court shall record his plea as nearly as possible in the words used by him and if satisfied that he intended to admit the truth of all the essentials of the offence of which he has pleaded guilty, the court shall convict him of that offence and pass sentence upon or make an order against him unless there shall appear sufficient cause to the contrary”. – Per Olukayode Ariwoola, JSC

TRIAL – INGREDIENTS OF A VALID TRIAL – THE REQUIREMENT OF READING THE CHARGE TO THE ACCUSED AND RECORDING THE PLEA OF THE ACCUSED

Ordinarily, for there to be a valid trial of an accused person, there must be first thing first. There must be a proper arraignment in terms of the procedure laid down in Section 215 of the Criminal Procedure Law. It reads thus:

“The person to be tried upon any charge or information shall be placed before the court unfettered unless the court shall see cause otherwise to order, and the charge or information shall be read over and explained to him to the satisfaction of the court by the registrar or other officer of the court, and such person shall be called upon to plead instantly thereto, unless where the person is entitled to service of a copy of the information he objects to the want of such service and the court finds that he has not been duly served therewith.”

There is no doubt, the requirement of the above provision or identical provision has been judicially considered in plethora of decisions of this court. The requirement is to the effect that the charge must be read over to the accused in the language he understands and the charge must be explained to the accused in the language he understands and to the satisfaction of the court before being called upon to plead to the charge. See; Erekanure v. The State (1993) 5 NWLR (Pt.294) 385; Kajubo v. The State (1988) 1 NWLR (Pt.73) 721; (1988) 1 NSCC 475; Efiom v. State (1995) 1 NWLR (Pt.373) 507; Timothy v. FRN (2012) 7 SCM 214.

However, when the charge is read to the accused person and he makes his plea and the court records his plea and thereafter proceeds to trial, the presumption of the law is that the court is satisfied that the charge was explained to the accused to its satisfaction. See; Okoro v. The State (1998) 14 NWLR (Pt.594) 181 where this court per Wali, JSC put the matter succinctly as follows:-

“The provision of the law should not be stretched to a point of absurdity by reading into it that the Judge must record that the charge was explained to the accused to his satisfaction before taking his plea. It will be impeaching the integrity of the Judge to do that, as no Judge will take the plea of an accused if he is not satisfied that the charge was read and explained to the accused to his satisfaction.”

It should be noted that the object of the requirement in Section 215 of the Criminal Procedure Act is to ensure that justice is not only claimed to be done but must be seen to have been done to the accused by ensuring that he understands the charge against him and so as to enable him to make his defence to the charge. See; Solola & Anor v. The State (2005) 6 SCM 137. In the case of Adeniji v. The State (2001) 13 NWLR (Pt.730) 375; (2001) 7 SCM 1, on the plea of the appellant, as recorded as in the instant appeal, the Court recorded the plea as follows:-

“Accused pleads not guilty to the charge”

Counsel raised in this court that the plea was not properly recorded in the trial court. This court held that since the accused person understood the English Language, which is the language of the court, there was no need to record that the charge was read to the accused in a language that he understands. In Okeke v. The State (2003) 5 SCM 131 on the pleas of the accused, the trial court was said to have recorded it as follows:

“The Charge is read to the accused who pleads not guilty to the charge.” The court opined that two events took place in the above sentence. The first one is that the charge was read to the appellant. The second one is that the appellant pleaded not guilty. The court continued as follows:

“Putting it another way, while the first event emanated from the court, the second event emanated from the appellant……………….I do not think the recording of a charge can be defeated merely because the trial Judge did not record that the charge was read in a particular language which is understood by the accused person, particularly in a situation such as this, where the appellant was represented by counsel………….taking a plea by an accused person presupposes that he understands the charge.” – Per Olukayode Ariwoola, JSC

PLEA – MEANING AND EFFECTS OF A PLEA

It is trite law that to give a plea is for an accused person to formally respond to a criminal charge, either of “guilty,” or “not guilty,” or “no contest”. Therefore, a plea of guilty is valid if it is made in an unambiguous and unequivocal way and the same is received by a trial court not belabouring under the misapprehension of what the law is. See; Emma Amanchukwu v. The FRN (2009) 2 SCM; 1 (2009) 8 NWLR (Pt.144) 475; Okewu v. FRN (2012) 4 SCM 118; (2012) 49 NSCQR 330; (2012) 2 SC (Pt.11) 1, Adeyemi v.The State (2013) 8 SCM 30 (2013) 14 NWLR (Pt.1373) 129; (2013) 4 SCNJ 120.

It is noteworthy that either before or after he gave his plea, neither the accused nor his counsel had any complaint about any lapse or flaw in the procedure adopted in his arraignment before the trial court. Therefore, it will be proper to presume that the trial court was satisfied, as required by law, that the charge was explained to the accused to its satisfaction, notwithstanding that the record of the trial court does not include details of how the charge was read and explained to the accused. See; Okeke v. The State (Supra).

Under Common law, ordinarily, the plea of the prisoner completes the arraignment. See; Uwafor Okegbu v. The State (1979) 11 SC 1. In the instant case, the plea of the accused had been taken in the presence of his counsel without any complaint on the procedure employed in the arraignment of the accused. Once an accused person pleads to a charge before the court without any objection, it presupposes that he understands the charge preferred against him. See; Okewu v. FRN (supra). It is equally noteworthy that the accused did not complain about his arraignment or the charge against him. If he had wanted to do so, he could have done so immediately the charge was read to him and before he gave his plea. Therefore, arraignment was completed after the plea was given and taken by the Court without objection by the accused. – Per Olukayode Ariwoola, JSC

APPEAL – WHERE THE APPELLANT DOES NOT APPEAL A FINDING OR HOLDING OF THE COURT BELOW

It is also interesting to note that the appellant did not appeal against the finding and holding by the court below that from the record, the learned trial Judge did not fulfill the statutory condition precedent under Section 218 of the Criminal Procedure Act. The implication of this is that he is satisfied with the said finding and therefore bound by the said finding and holding. The appellant can then not be heard to now complain that the court below did not take a decision on the issue of discretion under Section 218. It is too late, to say the least, for him to now complain about that issue. See; Uwazurike & Anor v. Nwachukwu & Anor (2012) 12 SCM (Pt.2) 534. – Per Olukayode Ariwoola, JSC

CASES CITED

STATUTES REFERRED TO

1. Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended)
2. Criminal Procedure Act Cap. C.41, Laws of the Federation, 2004
3. National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Act, Cap. 253, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 1990
4. Evidence Act, CAP E114, Laws of the Federation, 2004

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