Wakilii

Sowedo Ndosire V Uganda [1990] UGSC 1

Supreme Court · 1990 Appeal Allowed ✦ AI-generated summary ↓ Download
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Criminal appeal from a High Court conviction for murder, against both conviction and sentence
Decision
Murder conviction and death sentence set aside; manslaughter conviction substituted with a sentence of 10 years imprisonment

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Holding

The Supreme Court held that the trial judge wrongly rejected the defence of provocation. The deceased's act of hitting the appellant hard with a stick (corroborated by recovered broken sticks and admitted police evidence) was a wrongful act likely to deprive an ordinary person of self-control, and the appellant's fatal panga attack was an immediate reaction in the heat of passion before any time to cool. The judge had improperly relied on inadmissible hearsay of previous attacks and substituted conjecture for evidence in finding premeditation. Giving the appellant the benefit of a reasonable doubt, the conviction for murder was quashed and a conviction for manslaughter substituted.

Facts

On 10 October 1983, the deceased, Peter Bakandema, was returning home in the evening when he met his son, the appellant, who was returning from his banana garden about 350 feet from their shared home. A fight broke out and the appellant cut the deceased with a panga, inflicting deep wounds to the neck, scalp and arm; the deceased died the same night from haemorrhage. Two eyewitnesses (a son and the appellant's mother, both connected to the deceased) heard the deceased's alarm and saw the appellant cutting him but fled. The appellant, in an unsworn statement, claimed his father, who was drunk, struck him hard with a stick (breaking it) and that the panga injuries occurred during a struggle for the weapon. Police recovered two pieces of broken stick at the scene, consistent with the appellant's account that the deceased first struck him.

Issues

  1. Whether the appellant caused the death of the deceased with malice aforethought, or whether the killing was committed under provocation so as to reduce the offence from murder to manslaughter.
  2. Whether the trial judge erred in relying on inadmissible hearsay evidence of previous attacks and in finding the killing premeditated rather than provoked.

Orders

  • Appeal allowed.
  • Conviction of murder quashed.
  • Sentence of death set aside.
  • Conviction for manslaughter contrary to section 182 of the Penal Code substituted.
  • Appellant sentenced to 10 years imprisonment.

Key headnotes

Criminal Law — Murder — Provocation — Conditions reducing murder to manslaughter
Under sections 187 and 188 of the Penal Code, a charge of murder is reduced to manslaughter where the death was caused in the heat of passion before time to cool, the provocation was sudden, it was caused by a wrongful act or insult of such a nature as would likely deprive an ordinary person of the accused's class of the power of self-control, and it induced the accused to assault the provoker.
Criminal Law — Provocation — Use of a deadly weapon
Where all other conditions of provocation are present, the accused must be found guilty of manslaughter and not murder, irrespective of whether the responsive assault was carried out with a deadly weapon such as a panga or by other means calculated to kill.
Evidence — Hearsay — Inadmissibility of evidence of facts not witnessed
Evidence of previous attacks which the witness did not personally witness is inadmissible hearsay and should neither be received on record nor relied upon to explain an accused's subsequent conduct or to infer premeditation.
Criminal Law — Findings of fact — Conjecture substituted for evidence
A trial judge errs where he substitutes his own conjecture for evidence, such as concluding that an attack was premeditated or continued after the accused's passion had cooled, where there is no evidence on record supporting such conclusions.

Legislation cited (4)

  • Penal Code Act s.187
  • Penal Code Act s.188
  • Penal Code Act s.182
  • Trial on Indictments Decree s.64

Cases cited (4)

  • Rex v Hussein s/o Mohamed (1942) 9 EACA 152
  • Yovan v Uganda [1970] EA 405
  • Benedicto Simba Ogwang v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 14 of 1983)
  • Ofono v Uganda [1977] HCB 210
Source: this page presents Wakilii’s issue analysis and metadata for a publicly reported Ugandan judgment. Any AI-generated summary is marked as such. Judgment text is sourced from the Uganda Legal Information Institute (ulii.org). Wakilii is not affiliated with ULII.