EDOZIE, JSC (Delivering the Lead Judgment): The appellant Augustine Guobadia was charged before the Benin High Court for the murder on 5th February. 1987 of his two year old half brother, Osazuwamen, an offence punishable under section 319(1) of the Criminal Code, Cap. 48 Vol. 11, Laws of Bendel State of Nigeria, 1976. At the trial in which six witnesses testified for the prosecution, the fact that the act of the appellant caused the death of the deceased was not contested. Indeed, both in his statement to the Police, exhibit B, and his evidence in court the appellant confessed to killing the deceased. What was canvassed on his behalf was the defence of insanity. But the learned trial Judge, Obi J, in his judgment of 29th July, 1988 exhaustively considered that defence and in rejecting it, he convicted the appellant of murder and passed a death sentence on him.
On appeal by the appellant to the Benin Division of the Court of Appeal, the main plank of the appeal was that the learned t…