Manasseh Japhet & Anor V. The State & Ors (2010)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report – COURT OF APPEAL

T. O. AWOTOYE J.C.A (Delivering the Leading Judgment)

There are consolidated appeals against the interlocutory decisions of the High court of Rivers state presided over by the Hon. Justice B.A, Georgewill delivered on 8/3/2006 and 28/11/2006 respectively.

In the first ruling the trial judge dismissed the Appellants application holding that the proof of evidence disclosed a prima facie case against them and in the second ruling His Lordship adjourned the hearing of the information sine die.

The Appellants being dissatisfied with the above rulings filed their notices and grounds of appeal on 22/3/2006 and 11/12/2006 respectively.

By their notice and grounds of appeal filed on 22/3/2006 their grounds of appeal are stated as follows:-

GROUNDS OFAPPEAL

1. The learned trial judge erred in law in holding that:

“Now, applying these salient principles to the proof of evidence against the Accused persons and the statement of the offence charged, I am unable to see how the contentions of the 2nd and 3rd Accused’s counsel can maintained that there are no prima facie case against the 2nd and 3rd Accused persons.”

PARTICULARS OF ERROR.

A. A prima facie case is said to exist in a criminal trial, when all the ingredients required by law to sustain the charge are established or present in the proof of evidence and upon the evidence led by the prosecution or upon looking at the proof of evidence in a trial by information, the evidence adduced by the prosecution is sufficient to convict the accused person if not rebutted by the accused persons, and there is no other disqualifying feature affecting the statements in the proof, which was not the situation or position in the case in hand.

E. The ingredients of murder as required by Section 319 (1) of the Criminal Code Cap 37, Laws of Rivers State of Nigeria, 1999, were lacking in the proof of evidence in that there was no evidence in the proof that the persons allegedly killed are dead, and or that if dead, they died on the 12th of April 2004 as charged, the cause of their death, if dead, that it was the Appellants either on their own or in conjunction with other persons that killed the alleged persons or caused their death.

C. There was evidence from the PW2 that as the 12th of April 2004, the allegedly dead persons were seen and still alive.

2. The learned trial judge erred in law and upon the facts in holding that:

“I am therefore satisfied that the application to quash this charge is lacking in merit that there are insufficient grounds to call upon the 2nd and 3rd Accused persons to stand trial in this charge I need not say anything further on this issue as evidence has not been led by the state in support of its proof of evidence.”

PARTICULARS OF ERROR:

A. An application to quash a Count in an information is bound to succeed, where, going through the proof of evidence and taking all the statements of the witnesses and the accused together, the case of the prosecution appear manifestly unreliable or the statements of the witnesses materially contradict each other or the case or defence set up by the accused in their statements in the proof have not been negative by the evidence adduced in the proof by the prosecution.