JAMES IMBWOYERE OBOWOM V. REPUBLIC

RULING OF THE COURT

The appellant, James Imbwoyere Obowom, was convicted of murder contrary to Section 203 as read with Section 204 of the Penal Code and sentenced to death. He has appealed to this Court but while his appeal is pending he took out a notice of a motion under rule 29 (2) of the Court of Appeal Rules seeking leave to adduce additional evidence during the hearing of the appeal. The evidence sought to be adduced relates to the production of the Occurrence Book (O.B.) of 13th August, 1991, from Kilimani Police Station.

The principle upon which an appellate court in a criminal case will exercise its discretion in deciding whether or not to allow additional evidence to be adduced for the purpose of the appeal were set out by the Court of Appeal for East Africa in the case of ELGOOD v. REGINA [1968] E.A. 274 . It was held that the evidence sought to be called must be evidence which was not available at the trial and must be relevant to the issues. It must be evidence which is cr…