is a first offender, etc can be taken into consideration by the trial court in passing the sentence on the convict, indeed, the trial court has the discretion to employ these factors to reduce the years of sentence. But in a charge where the sentence prescribed is only death, it is not within the competence of a trial court to exercise any judicial discretion to reduce the death sentence to a term of years” See also the case of MUSA v STATE CA/K/320/C/2008 also cited as (2012) 3 NWLR Page 59 where the court held as follows: “Issue of sentence is discretionary on the part of the trial court. But the said discretion must be exercised judicially and judiciously. In the exercise of such discretion, the trial court must be conscious of the bounds within which he is kept by the law and must not exceed the same. He must not and will never pass any sentence in excess of the term of years or months stipulated by the law. It can nevertheless pass a less sentence than that provided by the law having regards to the facts and circumstances of each case. It is desirable that in exercising its discretion over sentence, a trial court should state in its judgment the factors that influenced its decision” The accused is hereby convicted on Count No. 2 – 6. Allocutus Defence Counsel – We urge the court to tamper justice with mercy in passing the sentence on the accused person. 16