JOHN MWAURA MUCHIRI V. REPUBLIC

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

John Mwaura Muchiri (or John Mwaura Machiri, as appears in the original handwritten charge sheet) (“the appellant”) comes before us on his second and last appeal after the first appeal was dismissed by the superior court (Ochieng and Makhandia JJ) on 27^th July, 2004. He was originally tried and convicted before the Chief Magistrate’s Court at Thika on three counts of the offence of robbery with violence contrary to section 296(2) of the Penal Code and was sentenced to suffer death on each count. In passing, we must observe that the manner of sentencing, which the superior court upheld, was improper since the appellant could not be hanged thrice over! This court has said ad nauseum that where an accused person is convicted on more than one capital charge, the sensible thing to do is to sentence him to death on only one of the counts and leave the others in abeyance, including any sentence of imprisonment – see, for examples, Muiruri v. R [1980] 1 KLR 70, Abdihussei…