Katureebe & Another v Uganda (Criminal Appeal 41 of 2016)

Supreme Court · [2019] UGSC 82 · 2019 Appeal Partly Allowed ✦ AI-generated summary ↓ Download

Jurisdiction

Uganda

Case Type

Second criminal appeal from a Court of Appeal decision upholding a murder conviction and varying the death sentence to a term of years.

Decision

Conviction upheld; sentences set aside and substituted with 26½ years' imprisonment for each appellant from the date of conviction.

The full judgment

Read the complete, verbatim text of this judgment.

Cited — treatment unverified cited in 1 (treatment unverified) Derived from citing cases in the Wakilii corpus — not an assertion that this case is good law.

AI-generated summary. This summary was generated by AI from the full text of the judgment. It may contain errors or omissions — always read the source judgment before relying on it.

Holding

On a second appeal against a murder conviction and sentence, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of the second appellant, holding that common intention under section 20 of the Penal Code Act may be inferred from a participant's presence, conduct, and failure to dissociate himself from the acts of others, without any prior agreement. The Court held that the Court of Appeal's failure to deduct the period spent on remand, as required by Article 23(8) of the Constitution, rendered the sentences illegal. Invoking section 7 of the Judicature Act, it set aside the 30 and 35-year terms, fixed an appropriate sentence of 30 years, and deducted 3½ years on remand, substituting 26½ years for each appellant from the date of conviction.

Facts

The two appellants were brothers. The first appellant was a herdsman at the home of one Buteera; the second appellant was a cultivator. The deceased, a cattle trader, borrowed money to buy cows and went, accompanied by the second appellant, to negotiate at Buteera's home. After failing to agree on a price, the deceased left with Buteera's two sons, the first appellant and the second appellant. According to the second appellant's charge and caution statement, they escorted the deceased to a small valley where the elder son of Buteera cut the deceased on the neck with a panga, killing him. The deceased's body was later found in a forest. The second appellant fled the village, was traced and arrested in Mubende, and attempted to escape custody before being re-arrested. The prosecution relied on circumstantial evidence and the appellants' charge and caution statements. The appellants were convicted of murder and sentenced to death; the Court of Appeal upheld the conviction and varied the sentence to terms of years.

Issues

Whether the doctrine of common intention was properly applied to hold the second appellant liable for the murder.
Whether the Court of Appeal's failure to take into account the period spent on remand under Article 23(8) of the Constitution rendered the sentences illegal.
Whether the sentences should run from the date of conviction or the date of remand.

Orders

Ground 3 (against conviction) fails; the conviction of the second appellant is upheld.
The appeal partially succeeds on grounds 1 and 2 (against sentence).
The sentences passed by the Court of Appeal are set aside.
Each appellant is substituted with a sentence of 26½ years' imprisonment, to run from the date of conviction.

Key headnotes

Parties to Offences — Common Intention — Inference from Presence, Conduct and Failure to Dissociate

A common intention under section 20 of the Penal Code Act need not arise from an agreement entered into before the incident; it may be inferred from the presence, actions and omissions of a participant and his failure to dissociate himself from the acts of the others.

Sentencing — Article 23(8) — Mandatory Deduction of Remand Period

A court imposing a custodial sentence must take into account the period an accused has spent in lawful custody before completion of trial; failure to deduct the remand period as required by Article 23(8) of the Constitution renders the sentence illegal.

Appeals — Duty of a Second Appellate Court

On a second appeal the court's function is confined to deciding whether the first appellate court properly discharged its duty to re-evaluate the evidence and reach its own conclusion; it will interfere only where the first appellate court failed to re-evaluate the evidence as a whole.

Sentencing — Discretion — Consistency Between Cases

Consistency in sentencing is neither a mitigating nor an aggravating factor and does not render a sentence illegal; after weighing mitigating and aggravating factors, the sentence lies in the court's discretion, which may have regard to sentences in similar cases.

Legislation cited (6)

Penal Code Act s.188
Penal Code Act s.189
Penal Code Act s.20
Constitution of the Republic of Uganda Article 23(8)
Judicature Act s.7
Judicature Act s.11

Cases cited (5)

Kifamunte Henry v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 7 of 1997)
P.R. Pandya vs. R. (1957) E.A.
Kairu v Uganda (1978) HCB 123
R v Tabulayenka s/o Kirya and others (1943) 10 EACA 51
Rwabugande Moses v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No. 25 of 2014)

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.