Josephine Ani V. The State (2002)

LAWGLOBAL HUB Lead Judgment Report

I. KATSINA-ALU, J.S.C.

This is an appeal from a conviction for murder. The defence raised at the trial was that of insanity. The learned trial Judge held that the defence of insanity failed. The appellant’s appeal to the Court of Appeal was dismissed. She has further appealed to this court.

The facts of this case are not in dispute. The appellant on the morning of 1/3/88 left her house and went to the house of PW3 Charity Ani whom the appellant described as “my friend.” She met PW2 and the deceased children at home. On inquiry about PW3 and her husband, the children told the appellant that their parents had gone to the farm. Upon hearing this, the appellant went to a nearby mechanic workshop and picked up an iron rod and returned to the house of PW3. The appellant first attacked Peter aged 5 years with the iron rod. While Peter cried in pains he told Amoge aged 4 years to run for safety. The appellant hit Peter on the head with the iron rod several times until he died. Next, the appellant pursued Amoge to a house where she took cover under a bed. The occupant of the room on seeing the appellant, showed the appellant where Amoge was hiding. The appellant then dragged Amoge out from under the bed. She hit Amoge repeatedly with the iron rod until she died. Thereafter the appellant chased PW2 who ran to the motor park for help. When the appellant saw a policeman (PW4) she ran. PW4 however chased her, caught up with her and arrested her and took her in for questioning. That was when she made exhibit B confessional statement to the police.

The lone issue for determination raised by the appellant is whether or not the lower court was right in affirming that the defence of insanity did not avail the appellant.

Every person is, unless the contrary is proved, presumed by law to be sane, and to be accountable for his actions. But if there is an incapacity, or defect of the understanding, as there can be no consent of the will, the act is not punishable as a crime. Whether the accused was sane or insane in the legal sense at the time when the act was committed is a question of fact to be decided by the trial Judge and not by medical men however eminent, and is dependent upon the previous and contemporaneous acts of the accused. See R. v. Revitt, 34 Cr. App. R 87.Where an accused pleads insanity, the onus is on him to produce evidence of insanity. In the instant case the onus was on the appellant to establish insanity. See Udofia v. The State (1981) 11-12 SC 49. Although plainly there was no apparent motive for the gruesome murder, the law is that mere absence of any evidence of motive for a crime is not sufficient ground upon which to infer mania see R. v. Ashigifuwo 12 WACA 389. The absence of motive is at most a matter to be taken into consideration when there is no other evidence indicative of insanity rather than the opposite – Ayinde v. The Queen (1963) 2 SCNLR 362; (1963) 1 All NLR 393.

It is to be observed that the law on the subject to which the court must address its mind is section 28 of the criminal code. The section provides that a person, “is not criminally responsible for an act ……if at the time of doing the act…..he is in such a state of mental disease or natural mental infirmity as to deprive him of capacity to understand what he is doing or of capacity to know that he ought not to do the act ”

In order, therefore, to establish the defence of insanity, the defence must first show that the accused was at the relevant time, suffering from either mental disease or from a “natural mental infirmity.” Then it must be established that the mental disease, or the natural mental infirmity as the case may be, was such that, at the relevant time, the accused was, as a result deprived of capacity:

(a) to understand what he was doing; or

(b) to control his actions; or

(c) to know that he ought not to do the act or make the omission.” See R. v. Omoni 12 WACA 511.

So much for the law.

I now turn to the application of the law to the facts. The defence of the appellant at her trial was, I need hardly say, simply one of insanity. The defence called certain witnesses. The first was Reuben Osahon consultant and psychiatrist of the psychiatrist hospital Benin city. The sum total of his evidence is that “from the history I have given and from the examination of the accused person there was no doubt that she was suffering from depressive illness.”

The second witness was Maria Enefome Urefe (Mrs.), a pharmacist and technician at the prison clinic. She testified inter alia:

“When I tried to interview the accused person she was unable to say reasonable thing and was incoherent, accused person was restless…”