DEFENCE OF INSANITY

In law a man is punished for what he attempts to do even if he fails to do it, any attempt to commit an offence is manifested by process of putting intention to execution by overt acts falling short of commission by intervening act or involuntary obstruction SUNDAY JEGEDE V. THE STATE(2001)FWLR PT66. Offender must have crossed rubicon and burnt his boat.

Irrespective of this provision the law has given defences available to an accused under the law.The character of defence is both in law and on the facts,it is radical in that it seek to invoke protection ,resistance ,justification,or excuse to the accusation.

The accused then seek the protection of the law requiring that he should not be punished for an offence he never committed or for an offence of false allegation,for these reason all defences specifically or otherwise should be considered and it is the duty of the prosecuting counsel not to look at himself as an advocate but as a minister of justice and his task is not to secure conviction but to help the administration of justice.........this was the decision in STATE V. DUKE & ANOR 2003 FWLR PT 171

DEFENCE OF INSANITY: A viable plea of the defence of insanity is a viable plea of the defence of insanity which presupposes that the accused did not know the difference between the legal right and wrong at the time he did an act or made an ommission,insanity in law does not only mean a mad man/woman on the street but commonly denotes as the ‘state of mind’ which knows right from wrong. In discerning mental illness that would disconnect and render a person incapable of capacity of liability for an action,requisite evidence should be that of a pscychological expert after the necessary accessment.

In AIGUPKPIAN V. STATE 2003 FWLR there is presumption of sanity to every person, there is no need for the prosecution to call evidence to prove sanity of an accused person............so every person is presumed sane until contrary is proved by virtue of the provision of Section 27 of the criminal code.

To succeed in a defence of insanity the accused must establish that at the relevant time of committing an offence he was suffering from either mental disease or from natural affirmity. MADJEMU V. STATE 2001 9NWLR it is a requirement that the accused must prove beyond reasonable doubt that at the time of committing the offence he was sufferring from mental infirmity,the accused must lack capacity to understand what he is doing.This was the position where an accused ran off with the head of his victim and stated that someone before he was born asked him to kill the unknown assailant.

In LOKE V. STATE 1985 ALL NLR1 an accussed discharged from a mental hospital a day before killing his victim,was found licking the blade of the cutlass he used was by conduct to be insane.

Please not that self induced insanity that does not afford a defence i.e. voluntarily taking alcohol/intoxicant shall not be a defence of insanity or stupefying substances without medical prescription.

It is important to avoid anyone we suspect to be suffering from mental infirmity because where the defence of insanity succeeds ,the appellant will be ordered to be confined in a prescribed place to await other of the appropraite authority ,and the prosecution will be left with no other option but to accept it as a will of God. Avoid anyone suffering from the visitation of the gods as we live with,see some of them but we never know.

 

Thank you

 

Oyenike Alliyu-Adebiyi LLB(hons)BL