"A court is said to be of competent jurisdiction with regard to a suit or other proceeding when it has power to hear or determine it or exercise any judicial...
Explore NLC Curated Legal Principles
"Those accused persons ought not to have been discharged. Luckily for them, however, their case is not before this court there being no appeal against their discharge. What is, therefore...
"Where several persons are tried together, separate verdicts must be returned in respect of each of the accused persons and where there are several counts on the information, separate verdicts...
"A confessional statement is the best evidence in our criminal procedure. It is a statement of admission of guilt by the accused and the court must admit it in evidence,...
"In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, when the charge is read to the accused person and he makes his plea and the court records his plea and...
"It is an elementary law that the provision of a section should be interpreted in the light of the factual situation in the matter before the court and not in...
"In the case of Modupe v. The State (1988) 4 NWLR (Pt. 87) 130 at p.142, this court held that where the age of the accused person is material for...
"Learned counsel for the respondent has conceded, quite rightly, that since it was doubtful that the appellant had attained the age of 17 years when he committed the offence, that...
"No citizen should be put to the rigours of trial, in a criminal proceeding, unless available evidence points, prima facie, to his complicity in the commission of a crime."
"Suspicion, however well placed, does not amount to prima facie evidence, more facts than are now in the printed record will be needed to nail the appellant to his being...
"In the instant case, the relevant materials placed before the trial Judge for the exercise of his discretion are the proofs of evidence and the written caution statements of the...
"The next principle is of course that even if the deposition and statements attached to the information disclose an offence, an accused person should not be put on his trial...