MIRI & ORS. V. THE STATE

• Pages: 37-40

MIRI & ORS. V. THE STATE

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MIRI & ORS. V. THE STATE

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NIMVEM MIRI AND ORS.

V

10 THE STATE

SUPREME COURT OF NIGERIA

BRETT,

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J.S.C.

COKER,

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J.S.C.

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LEWIS,

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J.S.C.

16th February, 1968.

APPELLANT

RESPONDENT

SUIT NO. SC 279/67

Criminal Law - Culpable homicide not punishable with death - Appellant with

other persons attacking deceased with axe - Common intention to attack and

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kill proved - Whether medical evidence vital - Penal Code s.79.

ISSUES:

1. Where several persons attacked a deceased person with a common intention

to attack and kill, can one of the attackers be solely liable for the murder.

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2. Is medical evidence of the cause of a deceased person's death necessary

where other evidence exists already to prove that the defendant attacked and

killed the deceased.

FACTS:

The appellant was the eighth accused in a trial before the Jos High Court, he

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was convicted of culpable homicide not punishable with death contrary to s.224

of the Penal Code and was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. The prosecu-

tion's case was that the appellant and eight others attacked the deceased who was

unarmed and as result of his injuries, he died on the spot. The trial judge dis-

charged and acquitted the other eight accused persons for want of sufficient evi-

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dence against them, but believed the evidence adduced against the appellant that

he struck the deceased with an axe and he accordingly convicted him. The ap-

pellant appealed to the Supreme Court, submitting that the learned trial judge was

wrong in disbelieving his alibi; wrong in convicting him alone when he acquitted

all the others; and wrong to have relied on the medical report as establishing that

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he killed the deceased.

HELD:

1.

Once it was proved that the eighth accused was one of those who attacked the

deceased and that one person out of those who attacked the deceased had a

deadly weapon and that the eighth accused strucked the deceased, then

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whether his was the blow that killed him or not he would have equally been

liable, by virtue of section 79 of the Penal Code, as others who attacked the

deceased because they had a common intention to attack and kill the deceased.

2.

There was evidence here which the trial judge accepted, of the eighth accused

attacking the deceased with an axe and of his death at the spot so that the

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medical evidence did not seem to be as vital as it did to the trial judge and the

conviction could be sustained without it.