CAUSATION OF DEATH AND CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY

It is these three elements that must be proved simultaneously and beyond reasonable doubt, failure of which will result back to the presumption of the innocence of the accused.

However, it may be asked, how does the prosecution prove the second element of the crime, that the death of the victim was really caused by the action of the accused? To that one may instinctively respond that: “By medical evidence!” How then in the absence of such??

The Supreme Court in the very recent case of UMAR V. STATE (2026) 5 NWLR (PT. 2036) 67 answered the above question. The facts of the case, straightforward and devoid of complexities, are remitted thus:

On the 25th June, 2015, at about 12:30 pm, in Tafa Town along the Kaduna-Abuja Expressway, Kaduna State, one Sgt. Mohammed Tiji of the Nigeria Police, Zaria Command, was going home, after close of work, when he heard a shout. He looked around and saw that appellant, who was on trial accused of being guilty of culpable homicide punishable with death, with a knife, with a trailing point, which he used to stab Abdulkadir Abubakar, the deceased, on the right side of his chest. The deceased fell down and blood was gushing out from his body. He arrested the appellant and asked the people around to take him to the Tafa Police Station while he took the victim to the Umaru Musa Yar’adua Hospital, Sabon Wuse, Niger State. On his way back to the Police Station, he received a phone call from the hospital that the victim had given up the ghost. He proceeded to the Police Station, met the Divisional Police Officer (D.P.O.) and told him exactly what he witnessed happened. After due investigation, the appellant was arraigned before the High Court of Kaduna State on a one-count charge/information for the offence of culpable homicide punishable with death contrary to the provision of section 221(b) of the Penal Code, Laws of Kaduna State, 1991, to which the appellant pleaded not guilty.

Upon the plea of non-guilty, a full-dress determination of the case was conducted, where the prosecution (the respondent herein) called three witnesses and tendered some evidence. The appellant however did not, but rested his case on that of the prosecution. Upon conclusion of the case, the trial court found the appellant guilty, convicted him and sentenced him to death.

Dissatisfied with the decision, he appealed at the Court of Appeal which upheld the trial judgement and dismissed the appeal. Still unsatisfied, he approached the Supreme Court, seeking that the findings of the two court be dismissed, their sentences and convictions quashed and he be discharged and acquitted. He urged the court to determine whether the prosecution had proved its case against him beyond reasonable doubt and whether evidences adduced were properly evaluated and sufficient for him to be convicted. He opined that the respondent failed to prove the second ingredient of the offence, stating that there was no evidence as to what happened in the hospital so that there was break in the chain of causation, which therefore necessitated medical evidence. He took the view that since the second ingredient of the offence was not proved, it followed that the third ingredient was not proved. He described the decision as perverse and a miscarriage of justice.

The respondent on the other part contended, insisting that all ingredients were proved beyond reasonable doubt, and noted that there was a causal link between the act of the accused and the relevant consequences. He insisted that there was no break in chain of causation and there was no need for medical evidence.

The learned justices of the Supreme Court, in deciding the issues, firstly clarified the stance of the court on the necessity of medical evidence in proving the cause of a victim’s death:

“Medical evidence denotes: “Evidence furnished by a doctor, nurse or other qualified medical person testifying in a professional capacity as an expert, or by a standard treatise on medicine or surgery”, see Bryan A. Garner, ninth edition, Black’s Law Dictionary (USA: West Publishing Co., 2009)page 638. Medical evidence, which encompasses medical report, has ceased to be a condition sine qua non for proof of all cases of homicide in criminal jurisprudence. It is a settled law, beyond any peradventure of doubt, that the need for medical evidence is rendered lame where: death is instantaneous, or nearly so, from an attack; the cause of death is known or could be inferred from the circumstances of evidence adduced or there is abundant evidence of the manner of death…”

Holding so, the learned justices then proceeded to explicate the determination of the link of causation, thereby holding that:

“The litmus test for location of causation has been put to rest by this court. In Aiguoreghian v. State (2004) 3 NWLR (Pt. 860) 367, at 413 and 414, Tobi, JSC, graphically, explored the hallmarks of causation in these illuminating words:

“Let me take first the appeal of the 1st appellant. It zeros on the law of causation in our criminal jurisprudence. Around the terminology of causation is proximate cause, legal cause and direct cause, terms which are used synonymously. The expressions “immediate cause”, “effective cause” and causa causans are used to denote the last link in the chain of causation. An intervening or supervening cause denotes a cause that comes into active operation arising from negligence, even if that cause does not break the chain of causation.

In order to hold an accused criminally responsible, the chain of causation must not be broken. Once there is a broken link in the chain of causation, that broken link must be resolved in favour of the accused as it affects the actus reus of the offence. In other words, where the injury which caused the death is not the proximate, legal or direct cause of the death of the deceased, the benefit of doubt must be given to the accused. I can still go further. Where there is more than one possible cause of death, the benefit of doubt must be given to the accused because the available evidence in such a situation does not pin the accused down to the death of the deceased. This is because there is an intervening or supervening cause, which equivalents in Rome’s Latin home, are novus actus interveniens and nova interveniens respectively.”

From the above excerpt of the court’s pronouncement, it is inferable that in the presence of an unforeseeable event or action between the accused’s act and the resulting harm can break the chain of causation, in which case the accused shall be relieved of criminal responsibility. This the court referred to as the doctrine of “novus actus interveniens.”

However, in synchronizing this with the provided facts of the case, the Court held that:

“There was/is no ounce of evidence that something inimical to the deceased germinated in between the short time of the killer stab and the demise of the deceased as to warrant the presentation of any medical evidence nor the employment of the doctrine of novus actus interveniens. Thus, the knife stab was the direct/proximate, not the ultimate/remote, cause of the death. On this score, it is logical to reason, on the footing of the telling evidence on record, that the death of the deceased would not have occurred but for the appellant’s stab on the dangerous region of his body. The appellant’s quarrel with what transpired in the hospital is of no moment.”

Having determined the entire fate of the appellant by the above cited pronouncement, the court made a further pronouncement in emphasizing the onus of criminal responsibility, exemplifying with a medical scenario:

“Where medical treatment given to a murder victim is reasonably proper and in good faith, but results in the death of the deceased, the accused will still be criminally responsible if death resulted from his act on the deceased save he died from other causes.”

Owing to the above, it is evident that the criminal responsibility in a case of murder/homicide rests on the known proximate cause, and the interference of an intervening or supervening cause needs to be proved in order to relieve the accused/ defendant of such, in accordance with the doctrine of novus actus interveniens.

About the Author: Habeebullah Boluwatife Hassan is a member of the Research and Litigation Directorate, Solace Chambers, Bayero University, Kano. He can be reached via: +2349036512217 or email: habeebullahhassan02@gmail.com.