[2025] KEHC 5972 (KLR)

Parties

Procedural Posture

Criminal Revision / Ruling on Resentencing Application

Legal Issues

1. 1 Whether the applicant is entitled to resentencing in light of current jurisprudence on mandatory and indeterminate life sentences.
2. 2 Whether the indeterminate life sentence imposed on the applicant is unconstitutional and violates his rights to equality, dignity, and fair trial.
3. 3 Whether the period already served by the applicant is sufficient for purposes of rehabilitation and justice.

Ratio Decidendi

The court found that the applicant's original sentence of death, commuted to life imprisonment, was imposed under a mandatory regime that did not allow for consideration of mitigation, contrary to evolving constitutional and jurisprudential standards. Recent decisions from the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal, as well as the Sentencing Policy Guidelines, establish that indeterminate life sentences are unconstitutional as they violate the rights to equality, dignity, and fair trial. The court held that the objectives of sentencing can be met without indefinite incarceration, especially where the convict has demonstrated rehabilitation. Guided by the Court of Appeal's interpretation that...

Court Disposition

application for resentencing allowed; applicant released

Orders

• The life sentence for robbery with violence is set aside and substituted with a sentence of thirty (30) years' imprisonment from the date of arrest, 27th April 1998.
• The applicant is released forthwith as the sentence served is sufficient.