When Is The Best Time To Plea Alibi In A Criminal Charge?

Introduction

A football match, a groundnut seller, and a car pulling up with guns already drawn — this was an appeal against a death sentence for murder, where the accused's defence arrived years too late to matter. The Supreme Court, unanimously, dismissed the appeal.

Fact of the Case

On 24th August 2010, Soboma George went to watch a football match at the Approved Schools grounds in Borokiri, Port Harcourt. As he was leaving with his aide, Emmanuel George, he stopped to buy groundnuts from Joy John Ejims and her sister. While they were negotiating the price, a car pulled up carrying the appellant and two others, who opened fire on Soboma George and Joy John Ejims. Both fell. Emmanuel George, trying to help his boss, was shot in the arm and fled to safety, watching the rest unfold from hiding. All three victims were rushed to hospital, where Soboma George and Joy John Ejims were pronounced dead.

The appellant and his co-accused were later arrested in hiding in Ondo State, along with the vehicle used in the shooting. He was arraigned at the Rivers State High Court, Port Harcourt, as the third accused, on charges of conspiracy and murder.

Summary of Proceedings at the High Court

The prosecution called three witnesses: Emmanuel George, who gave a direct eyewitness account fixing the appellant as one of the shooters; the investigating police officer; and a photographer who had documented the scene. The prosecution also tendered the appellant's confessional statement, which was admitted as exhibit C after a trial-within-trial — the officer who recorded it testified that the appellant made the statement voluntarily and in the ordinary course of his duties.

Testifying in his own defence, the appellant raised an alibi for the first time — claiming he had been in Bayelsa State recovering from an unrelated injury at the time of the shooting. This alibi had never been mentioned to the police, and appeared nowhere in his earlier extra-judicial statement.

The trial court subjected the confessional statement to the recognised six-way test for assessing its reliability, and found it probable, corroborated, and consistent with the record — particularly the uncontroverted eyewitness evidence of Emmanuel George and a video recording of the appellant's police interview. The appellant and his co-accused were convicted and sentenced to death.

Summary of Proceedings at the Court of Appeal

The appellant appealed, arguing among other things that his confessional statement should have been expunged from the record. The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's evaluation of the statement, declined to expunge it, and dismissed the appeal in full.

Appellant's Case at the Supreme Court

Still aggrieved, the appellant raised three issues before the Supreme Court: whether the Court of Appeal was right to affirm the trial court's treatment of his confessional statement rather than expunging it; whether his alibi defence had been properly dislodged; and whether his guilt had truly been established beyond reasonable doubt. He pressed the argument that the confession should never have carried the weight it did, and that his account of being elsewhere at the time deserved more serious engagement than it received below.

Respondent's Case at the Supreme Court

The State's position was that both lower courts had correctly evaluated the same body of evidence and reached the same conclusion, and that nothing in the appellant's arguments disturbed those concurrent findings. On the alibi specifically, the State maintained that an account first raised from the dock, with no prior mention to police and no supporting particulars, carried essentially no weight once direct eyewitness testimony had already placed the appellant squarely at the scene.

Resolution of the Questions for Determination

On the confessional statement, the Court explained that once a statement has been properly admitted following a trial-within-trial, an appellate court's room to disturb that finding is genuinely narrow. Evaluating evidence and assessing witness credibility is fundamentally the trial court's task — it alone has the advantage of watching witnesses testify, weighing their demeanour and candour in a way no printed record can capture. Compounding the difficulty for the appellant here, he had never taken the separate interlocutory appeal available to him against the trial-within-trial ruling itself, at the time it was made. Letting that window close without challenge is treated as going along with the outcome — not something he could reopen years later at the apex court instead.

The Court also addressed a related evidentiary point: while documents generally must be tendered by the person who made them in civil trials, no equivalent rule exists in criminal proceedings. And objections to an extra-judicial statement only properly arise in one of two situations — where the accused denies making the statement at all, or where he admits making it but challenges its voluntariness. Since the appellant had admitted signing his statement, only the second route was open to him, and that route had already been tested and closed at the trial-within-trial stage.

On the alibi, the Court reaffirmed the well-worn principle that this defence must be raised at the earliest realistic opportunity, with enough concrete detail — names, places, dates — for the police to actually investigate it. An alibi introduced for the first time from the witness box, as happened here, is treated as little more than an afterthought. In any event, the defence collapses entirely once the prosecution produces evidence, as it did here through Emmanuel George's direct testimony, fixing the accused not just near the scene but actively committing the offence.

On guilt more broadly, the Court confirmed that an accused person's guilt can be established through any combination of three recognised channels: confessional statement, circumstantial evidence, and eyewitness testimony. Here, two of the three were present and mutually reinforcing — the confession and the eyewitness account — which was more than sufficient. The Court also brushed aside the appellant's reliance on minor inconsistencies in witness testimony, such as disagreement over whether the deceased had begged for or bought the groundnuts, or the colour of the getaway vehicle. Such discrepancies, the Court held, are the ordinary texture of honest human recollection and do not undermine a case that is otherwise sound on its essential ingredients. Nor did the absence of a pathologist's report matter here — a medical report is not a strict requirement in every murder trial, particularly where the cause of death is not genuinely in dispute.

Final Verdict

The Supreme Court found no basis to disturb the concurrent findings of the trial court and Court of Appeal, holding that the confessional statement was properly admitted and relied upon, and that the appellant's belated alibi carried no weight against direct eyewitness evidence placing him at the scene.

Appeal dismissed.

Key Takeaways

Once a confession clears a trial-within-trial, an appellate court's room to disturb that finding is genuinely narrow — and failing to challenge that ruling at the right time means accepting it, not a chance to revisit it later.

Documents don't need to be tendered by their maker in criminal trials, unlike the general rule in civil proceedings — a distinct evidentiary regime applies.

An alibi raised for the first time from the witness box, with no prior mention to police and no supporting particulars, is treated as little more than an afterthought.

Guilt can be established through any combination of confession, circumstantial evidence, and eyewitness testimony — a case doesn't need all three, and minor inconsistencies between witnesses don't undermine an otherwise sound prosecution.

A medical report isn't a strict requirement in every murder trial, particularly where the cause of death isn't genuinely in dispute.

In Practice

I do not think an accused person who was not at the scene of crime will withhold such information during his arrest or when his confessional statement is being recorded. To later raise a defence of alibi during a trial within trial will only raise a presumption of falsehood, and is bound to fail. A defence of alibi can not possibly be raised during a trial within trial as that defeats the whole essence of it. Trial within trial is solely to test the veracity and voluntariness of a confessional statement.

A client is expected to record in its confessional statement every useful information, such as an absence from the crime scene and also reveal same to his defence attorney. A criminal attorney must extract every useful information from his client before the commencement of trial. A defence of alibi will only avail an accused person where it was raised at the earliest given opportunity and that starts right from the point of arrest.

Search This Blog

Nigeria Case Law