Thread by @milleniallawyer

Jane Muthoni has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for the offence of Murder.
So what does Senior Counsel Fred Ngatia have to do with her sentence and why should she be grateful to Francis Karioko and @katibainstitute?
This is why 👇

Francis Karioko Muruatetu was accused of murder together with Wilson Thirimbu. They had killed Mr. Lawrence Githinji in February 2000. Murder is an offence under section 204 of the penal code and the sentence once found guilty, was DEATH! So what led to the guilty verdict?

Muruatetu and Wilson in their plan to murder Lawrence posed as land buyers. Together with his driver, he took the two to the said piece of land. Muruatetu and Wilson had barbed wire, iron bars and a machete which they indicated would be used to fence the property.

They caught Lawrence by surprise and hacked him with the panga and beat him with the metal bars. They then turned on the driver who they beat to near death and believing that he had died, they abandoned him.

That driver lived to tell the tale and on the basis of his testimony, Muruatetu and Wilson were convicted and sentenced to death. They then filed an appeal.

While this was going on, Kibaki became president and commuted all death sentences to life imprisonment,effectively ending the death penalty in Kenya. However, the law was not changed. This meant that anyone being sentenced to death would in effect be serving a life sentence.

Muruatetu and Wilson challenged section 204 of the penal code. First, they said that 204 pre-determined the sentence the court was to give and therefore it took away the independence of the court. Regardless of the facts surrounding the offence, the court had no option but...

...to sentence you to death.
Secondly, the mandatory death penalty interfered with the right to fair trial which is protected by the constitution. They argued that mitigation was a right of an accused person. In mitigation, you plead with the court to give you a lesser sentence.

They argued that this was not possible in murder cases where you have been found guilty.
Thirdly, they stated that the death penalty was against the right to life in the Constitution. Other grounds were argued but let's stick to the three for now.

So where does Fred Ngatia and Katiba Institute come in?At the supreme court, Fred Ngatia and Kioko Kilukumi represented Muruatetu and Wilson. @katibainstitute was invited as an amicus curiae (friend of the court) to guide the court, a task that was led by @waikwawanyoike and team

The Court found that indeed, a mandatory sentence meant that a judge could not consider unique circumstances of each case and was forced to only issue one sentence. That ground of appeal succeeded.
Secondly, the court agreed that a mandatory sentence made a mockery of mitigation

since it would make no difference at all to the court due to the mandatory sentence.
However, the court did not agree that the death penalty offended the right to life.
So what did this decision mean? It meant that the mandatory sentence was no longer applicable and that judges

will consider unique circumstances of the case and issue different sentences.
In one instance a woman who killed her husband was given a one day jail sentence because she had been a victim of domestic violence

So Teacher Jane Muthoni can thank Muruatetu and Wilson who through their appeal ensured that she gets a definite sentence of 30 years in jail for her husband's murder

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