PC Mulwani and Another v Uganda (Criminal Appeal 3 of 1992)

Supreme Court · [1993] UGSC 31 · 1993 Appeal Dismissed ✦ AI-generated summary ↓ Download

Jurisdiction

Uganda

Case Type

Criminal appeal against conviction and sentence from a High Court conviction for aggravated robbery

Decision

Appeal against conviction and sentence dismissed; conviction for aggravated robbery and sentence of death upheld

The full judgment

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Holding

The appellants, convicted of aggravated robbery and sentenced to death, appealed against conviction and sentence. The Supreme Court held that the one-hour discrepancy as to the time of the robbery was immaterial; that identification in broad daylight and at a parade was reliable; that a gun fired during a robbery is deemed a deadly weapon without need for expert testing; that the failure to establish the ballistic expert's competence occasioned no miscarriage of justice because he was accepted by the parties and the court; that the first appellant's statement was voluntary and, not being a confession, was not essential to conviction; and that the alibi, not disclosed at the earliest opportunity, was properly rejected. Appeal dismissed.

Facts

On 3 October 1990 at around lunchtime, Dr. Clarke was driving his Toyota Land Cruiser along Old Port Bell Road with two passengers when two armed robbers attacked them. One robber, the first appellant, approached the driver's side and the other, the second appellant, the front passenger side; both were armed with pistols. They ordered the occupants out, pulled Dr. Clarke from the vehicle and drove it away. Dr. Clarke telephoned the police, who alerted patrol vehicles. The stolen vehicle was sighted and police laid an ambush near the Mulago/Wandegeya roundabout. When the police fired to stop it, the vehicle swerved and knocked another car; the two occupants fled on foot, the first appellant firing in the air. They were chased and arrested near Wandegeya, the first appellant with a pistol. An identification parade ten days later saw both appellants identified by two eyewitnesses. The appellants denied the offence and each raised an alibi, which the trial judge rejected.

Issues

Whether discrepancies in the prosecution evidence as to the time of the robbery rendered the complainant's evidence unreliable.
Whether the trial judge properly evaluated the evidence and resolved doubts in favour of the appellants.
Whether the pistol was properly found to have been recovered from the first appellant and used in the robbery.
Whether it was unsafe to rely on the evidence of identification of the appellants.
Whether the first appellant's extra-judicial statement was made voluntarily and was admissible.
Whether the trial judge erred in admitting the evidence of the ballistic expert without first establishing his competence.
Whether the gun was properly found to be a deadly weapon within section 273(2) of the Penal Code.
Whether the trial judge erred in rejecting the appellants' alibi where it had not been investigated by the police.

Orders

Appeal dismissed.

Key headnotes

Evidence — Inconsistencies and Discrepancies — Immaterial discrepancies as to time

A discrepancy of about one hour between witnesses as to the time of an offence is immaterial and does not render the evidence unreliable, where in the circumstances it is difficult for witnesses to be exact in estimating time.

Aggravated Robbery — Deadly Weapon — Gun fired during robbery

Once a gun is fired during the course of a robbery it is deemed to be a deadly weapon, and there is no requirement that the gun be examined by an expert or test-fired.

Expert Evidence — Competence of Expert — Failure to establish competence before testimony

Although the competence of an expert witness should be established before he gives evidence, an omission to do so will not always render the evidence inadmissible, particularly where the witness imports a prima facie qualification and his capacity to give expert opinion is not challenged.

Confessions — Definition — Distinction from incriminating statement

A statement is not a confession unless it is sufficient by itself to justify the conviction of the person making it of the offence with which he is tried; a statement that merely incriminates without admitting the offence is not a confession.

Defences — Alibi — Failure to investigate

Where an alibi is not disclosed at the earliest opportunity to enable the police to check it, the police cannot be blamed for failing to investigate it, and failure to check an alibi does not render it true where there is sufficient evidence to prove it false.

Identification — Conditions favourable to correct identification

The possibility of mistaken identity is excluded where the accused are identified at the scene in broad daylight, within a short space of time, and subsequently at an identification parade by eyewitnesses.

Legislation cited (2)

Penal Code Act s.272
Penal Code Act s.273(2)

Cases cited (5)

Anyangu v Republic (1968) EA 239
Wasaja v Uganda (1975) EA 181
Birumba v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 32 of 1989)
Gatheru s/o Nyagwara v R (1954) 21 EACA 384
Mohamed Ahmed v R (1957) EA 525

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.