Trial within Trial in Criminal Proceedings

Trial within trial is a mini trial within the context of the main trial. It is a procedure in criminal law wherein the confessional statement of an accused person is subjected to trial scrutiny so as to determine whether the statement was freely and voluntarily made by the accused person to the police. In the words of Honourable Justice Centus Nweze of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, the raison d’être of the evolution of the mini trial procedure is to arm the trial court with a procedural mechanism for sifting the chaff of involuntary and inadmissible evidence from the wheat of admissible evidence.