GENERAL  PRINCIPLES OF CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY

1. Introduction
2. Objectives
3. Main Content

• Intention, Motive
• Mistake
• Corporation
• Husband and Wife
• Exemption from Criminal Responsibility
• Compulsion/Coercion
• Bona fide claim of
• Intoxication
• Insanity
• Immaturity

4. Conclusion
5. Summary
6. Tutor Marked Assignment
7. Reference

INTRODUCTION

The Constitution of Nigeria provides that no person shall be criminally liable and punished without there being first, a law creating the offence and prescribing a punishment for it. The Constitution also proscribes a retroactive criminalisation. Where the written law proscribes a conduct and a person violates the law and the prosecution is able appropriately to prove the facts of the case, the court may yet acquit the purported offender. In essence, though a person may in fact be responsible for an act or omission, he/she may not, in law, be held responsible. The reason may be that the act or omission was excusable or justifiable. Perhaps the accused  would have been exonerated becausehe avails himself/herself of  the defences or immunities allowed in law, or for some reasons as we shall see in this unit.

OBJECTIVES

When you have studied the unit, you should be able to: Apply the defence of Accident under the criminal law

Apply the defence of an event occurring independently of the will. Apply the defence of ignorance of law under the criminal law Apply the defence of Mistake in law

Critique the defence of accident Critique the defence of mistake.

MAIN CONTENT

Definition

Literarily. Criminal responsibility means:

Liability to suffer or pay compensation in certain eventualities

Legal accountability; liability to be made to account or pay; Capacity which normal people have to control their actions and conform to law Statutorily, the Criminal code defines the term to mean liability to punishment as See for an offence. See section 1

The Criminal has laid down certain circumstances in which a person  who breaks the law and ordinarily ought to be punished should not legally be held accountable. The reason may be that the person lack the mental capacity, he is excused by law, his conduct constituting the offence is justifiable or by reason of his status, position or office or other grounds. sfollowing defences are open to any person charged with an offence; legal accountability

Section 24:   Intention, Motive

A person is not criminally responsible for an act or omission, which occurs independently of the exercise of his will or for an event which occurs by accident.

An event occurs by accident if:

It is too remote and indirect a consequence of the accused’s unlawful act or omission

A reasonable man in the shoes of the accused, would not have foreseen it as likely or probable

The accused person could not reasonably have foreseen as likely or probably

Illustration through cases:

DTimbu Kohan (1968)  H and W quarrelled violently. H became tired of  the verbal exchanges, went outside the house and sat down. W followed H outside, berating him. It was dark. He picked up a light stick, aimed a moderate blow in the direction of W’s voice. The blow struck the little baby W was carrying in her arms on the head and killed it. Held the  event is an accident in that the accused could not reasonably have foreseen it and did not in fact foresee it.

StatevAppoli(1970)

A and B were pushing each other near a river, T warned them that they were playing a dangerous game. B pushed A further. A slipped, fell into the river and drowned.

Rejecting a defence of accident, the court held that a reasonable person would have appreciated the danger of pushing another near a river in the particular circumstance

An act or omission which occurs independently out of the exercise of one’s will is an accident and this terms is in two senses

1. Of consequences due to some external agency over which the accused has no control

e.g. a person riding a horse bolting against the will of the rider and without any fault on his part, knocks another person down.

2. Of unintended consequence of a lawful or voluntary act, (e.g. where a man working with an axe and its head flies up and kills a bystander or where in a lawful game, e.g one of the parties in the boxing tournament kills his opponent.

Mistake

Mistakes as a defence to crime, are of two kinds:

1. mistake of law
2. mistake of facts

Mistake of  Law

Ignorance of the law does no afford any excuse for any act or omission which would otherwise constitute an offence, unless knowledge of the  law by the offender is expressly declared to be an element of the offence Mistake of Law, also called ignorance of law, is an invalid defence.

Except where knowledge of the law is an element of the offence charged. Thus a mistake of Law would be a valid defence in the following cases.

23   Action from a bona fide claim of right

• Action from execution of an erroneous sentence, process or warrant.
• Action from Sentence or Process or warrant without jurisdiction

260    Action from Irregular process or warrant

To avail a defence in such cases, the accused must act in good faith and in the belief that the sentence, process or warrant was issued with authority.

Ogbu v R (1959)

O was alleged to have given a bribe to D in order to induce him (D) to appoint O a village head and therefore a tax collector.

O and D were both charged. O pleaded a mistake of law, contending that he did not know it was an offence to so bribe D and was acquitted. On appeal by the other accused (D). The Federal supreme Court expressed its opinion that it was not satisfied that the trial court was right in law in acquitting the first accused on those findings.

Ignorance of law is a good defence where knowledge of the law by the offender is expressly declared to be an element of the offence. Example are:

receiving stolen property, not knowing them to be stolen. Uttering Counterfeit coins, not knowing them to be counterfeits.

Mistake of facts

A person who does or omits to do an act under an honest and reasonable but mistaken belief in the existence of any state of things is nor criminally responsible for the act or omission to any greater extent than  if the real state of things had been such as he believed to exist, section 25, Criminal Code

Where there is a reasonable and honest mistake of fact the offence is treated as if the fact had been true.

B reasonably mistakes D’s bicycle for his and takes it.

The mistake must be such that any reasonable man would be likely to make the same mistake.

It is a defence when the accused believes in a state of affairs, which if true, would justify the act done. In other words, an actor is not responsible for the consequence, which ultimately follow his/her act which results from a mistake on his/her part.

Where Amuda shoots and kills at an object which he thinks is a dog or a ghost which turns out to be a man, he would not be treated as though he killed a dog or a ghost as the case may be.

Note the limitation of the defence: the operation of this rule may be excluded by the express or implied provisions of the law

relating to the subject

Corporation

A corporation is responsible for its corporate acts or omissions like any adult and it may be charged in its corporation name with any offence other than capital crimes or offences involving violence.

As in servant-master relationship, a corporation may be responsible for the acts of its servants.

Cor[porate Mens rea

A Corporation may be guilty of offence involving mens rea.

1. See DPP v Kent of Sussex contractors Ltd (1994)
2. R v I.C.P Haulage Ltd (1944)

A Corporation can not be charged with murder, being a capital crime. But there is authority that it can be guilty of manslaughter

In R v Coroner for Eash Kent, ex parte Spooner (1989), the court was prepared to accept that a corporate body could be guilty of manslaughter where both the mens rea and actus reus could be established against those who were the “embodiment of the corporate body itself”

Also in R v P & O European Ferries (Dover) Ltd (1991) Turner J held that  a company could incur liability for manslaughter, arguing that He state:

“……if it be accepted that manslaughter in English Law (as in Nigeria  law) is the unlawful killing of one human being by another human being (which include both direct and indirect acts) and that a person who is  the embodiment of a corporation aching for the purposes of the corporation is during the act or omission which caused the death, the corporation as well as the person may also be guilty of manslaughter.

Molan considers this judgment at least a theoretical victory for the prosecution and proponent of corporate liability for manslaughter. To convict a company, there must be evidence of gross criminal negligence, unless the offence is one of strict liability. The person doing that act is a senor manager, Director or other officer of sufficiently high status who is a manifestation or embodiment of the corporation and whose human mind can be identified as that of the corporation. If the offence is of strict liability the evidence required is absence of due diligence. Generally, Corporate liability depends on the interpretation of the particular statute creating the crime.

Conclusion.

As a general principle of criminal responsibility, no person is criminally responsible for any act or omission unless it is voluntary and intentional except as expressly provided by statute, or for an event which occurs by chance. A mistake of law is an excuse only where the law so prescribes but a mistake of fact, generally, is a defence.

Summary

In this unit, you have learned some defences to a criminal charge. You learned that accident or events which occur independently of exercise of one’s will and mistake of facts are exculpatory. It used be law that a corporation can not commit crimes. This has ceased to be law. You will learn more defences to criminal responsibility in the next unit.

Tutor Marked Assignment

1. Discuss the   scope   of the defence of accident under the criminal
2. In what circumstances will a mistake be a defence to criminal liability?
3. A corporation is capable of mens rea.

References.

Slapper; G : The English Legal System, 7^th Ed, Cavendish Publishing Ltd India

FGN:   - The Criminal Code

-           The Penal Code

The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.