DANGARI V. THE STATE

• Pages: 196-201

196



NIGERIAN SUPREME COURT CASES

[1968] N.S.C.C.

Appeal allowed: Judgment of High

Court set aside: Petition to be

heard de novo before another

judge of the High Court.

DANGARI V. THE STATE

5

ISA DANGARI

V

THE STATE

SUPREME COURT OF NIGERIA

COKER,



J.S.C.

LEWIS,



J.S.C.

MADARIKAN,



J.S.C.

11th October, 1968.

10

APPELLANT

RESPONDENT

SUIT NO. SC 150/1968



15

20

25

Criminal Law - Homicide - Culpable homicide punishable with death - Defence

of accident - Onus - Never shifts from the prosecution to negative mplanation

- Penal Code S.48.

ISSUE:

1. Where a defendant explains that he killed a person by accident, so as to bring

the death within S.48 of the Penal Code, does the onus of negating that

explanation lie on the prosecution,

FACTS:



30

The case for the prosecution was that the appellant killed his wife on her cas-

sava farm about the 28th of September, 1967. There were no witnesses to the kill-

ing. Several witnesses testified for the prosecution. The fourth prosecution

witness, a Native Authority Police Constable testified that when he asked the ap-

pellant about what had caused his wife's death, he replied that when he climbed



35

a tree to cut wood for his wife and while doing so, the axe blade fell. He then told

his wife to pick it up, the cut firewood then fell on his wife and she died. The

seventh prosecution witness, a Government Medical Officer gave evidence that a

piece of falling wood could have caused the fracture on the deceased's skull, if it

had been a heavy piece and falling from a considerable height. The trial judge



40

considered the evidence and convicted the appellant for culpable homicide pun-

ishable with death; the appellant appealed to the Supreme Court. Counsel for the

appellant submitted

inter alia

that the trial judge erred by disbelieving the appel-

lant's evidence as to his killing the deceased by accident, and by putting the onus

on the appellant to establish his defence of accident rather than, as he should have



45

done, having the onus on the prosecution to disprove it.

HELD:

1 It is always more difficult for the prosecution to establish a charge of culpable

homicide punishable with death when there was no eye-witness and the

evidence is only circumstantial, but once the accused has given an explanation



50

of the death being caused by an accident so as to bring it within section 48 of

the Penal Code the onus never shifts from the prosecution to negative that

explanation and any doubt must be resolved in favour of the accused.