Wakilii

Ofwono Erinest v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No.136 of 1999)

Court of Appeal · [2001] UGCA 7 · 2001 Appeal Dismissed AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Criminal appeal from High Court conviction and death sentence for murder
Decision
Appeal dismissed; conviction and death sentence for murder upheld

Observed later treatment

No later-treatment classification is recorded for this judgment.

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Holding

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal against conviction and death sentence for murder. Where the appellant, represented by counsel, raised no objection when his confession was tendered and only challenged its voluntariness during his defence, the belated challenge was an afterthought. The trial Judge properly found the confession voluntary and true, and having neither been genuinely retracted nor repudiated at the material time, the confession could support the conviction. The Court held the trial Judge correctly directed himself on the law governing confessions and reached the correct conclusion.

Outcome

Appeal dismissed; conviction and death sentence for murder upheld

Facts

On the night of 26/27 March 1993 at Apokoro village, Tororo District, the appellant and five others broke into the house of the deceased, Azalia Omella, robbed household property and shot him dead. The following morning one of the assailants was found seriously injured nearby; he named himself as Sam Damba and implicated the appellant and Okware before dying. The appellant, who had been the deceased's herdsman and cashier at the deceased's grinding mill, was arrested and charged with murder. He made a statement confessing to the murder, giving a detailed account of his participation in collaboration with the deceased's relatives. His counsel raised no objection when the statement was tendered, having sought and obtained an adjournment to consult the appellant. In his defence, the appellant set up an alibi and claimed the statement had been extracted by torture. The trial Judge disbelieved him, convicted him of the deceased's murder and sentenced him to death.

Issues

  1. Whether a conviction for murder could be based solely on a retracted and allegedly uncorroborated confession.
  2. Whether the appellant's confession was voluntary where objection to its voluntariness was raised only during his defence.
  3. Whether one accused's confession could be used to corroborate that of a co-accused.

Orders

  • Appeal dismissed.
  • Conviction upheld.
  • Death sentence upheld.

Rules and key headnotes

Confessions — Voluntariness — Objection raised belatedly during defence treated as afterthought
Where an accused, represented by counsel, raises no objection when his confession is tendered in evidence and challenges its voluntariness only during his defence, the court may treat the challenge as an afterthought and accept the confession as voluntary.
Confessions — Corroboration — Retracted or repudiated confession
A confession that is genuinely retracted or repudiated ordinarily requires corroboration as a matter of practice, but corroboration need not be sought where, from the circumstances of its making and the manner of retraction, the court is satisfied the confession is true.
Murder — Conviction based on confession — Sufficiency to sustain conviction
A voluntary confession that is neither retracted nor repudiated and which the trial court finds to be true may sustain a conviction for murder against its maker.

Legislation cited (2)

Cases cited (1)

  • N V. Lakhani R (1962) EA 644

Full judgment

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The original judgment as reported. Read the original PDF before relying on any passage.

Ofwono Erinest v Uganda (Criminal Appeal No.136 of 1999) [2001] UGCA 7 (12 December 2001)
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.