Bundi v Republic (Criminal Appeal 149 of 2018) [2025] KECA 1231 (KLR)
The bottom line
#Kenya's Court of Appeal upheld a murder conviction but replaced the death sentence with 30 years' imprisonment, reflecting Kenya's shift away from mandatory death sentences.
What this practically means
#Executive summary
#Questions the Court framed
#The issues the Court set itself to decide, in its own words.
- 1.Whether the prosecution proved the ingredients of the offence of murder beyond reasonable doubt against the appellant
- 2.Whether the sentence (the mandatory death sentence) was lawful
Key legal issues
#Proof of malice aforethought
Malice aforethought was established by the appellant's calculated conduct: leaving to fetch a panga, repeatedly cutting the deceased, and fleeing the scene for one and a half years.
The court adopted the reasoning in Daniel Muthee v Republic: repeated cuts with a panga show the assailant must have known the act would cause death or grievous harm under section 206(b) of the Penal Code. The trial court's findings that the cuts were intentional and not accidental were affirmed, and the appellant's defence of accidental injury during a struggle was rejected because the 'issue of Moris only came up in his defence' and was unsupported even by his own witnesses.
Appropriate sentence for murder
Although the conviction was sound, the death sentence was set aside in light of emerging jurisprudence on murder sentences and the particular circumstances, and a determinate sentence of thirty years was substituted.
The court considered the emerging jurisprudence on murder offences vis-à-vis the death sentence, that the parties had spent the evening drinking together with no known serious grudge, and that the appellant, though with an excuse, admitted cutting the deceased. These circumstances commended a determinate rather than the maximum sentence, running from the date of arrest.
Legal principles established
#- A first appellate court must reconsider the evidence afresh, analyse and evaluate it, and arrive at its own independent conclusions while making allowance for the trial court's advantage of seeing and hearing the witnesses.
Court orders
#- 1.Conviction affirmed
- 2.Death sentence set aside and substituted with a sentence of thirty (30) years imprisonment to run from the date of the appellant's arrest
The bench
#One judgment of the whole court — no separate or dissenting opinions.
- On appeal from
- High Court of Kenya
- Jurisdiction invoked
- First appeal to the Court of Appeal under the Criminal Procedure Code (specific section not stated in the judgment)
Relief refused
#Setting aside the conviction
The court aligned itself with the trial judge's findings that malice aforethought was proven
Costs
No costs order made in the judgment.
Quotable passages
#Verbatim from the judgment, each located to the page it appears on in the official PDF — so these can be cited and checked directly.
Ultimately we afirm the conviction. The appeal succeeds only to the extent that we set aside the death sentence and substitute the same with a sentence of thirty (30) years to run from the date of the appellant’s arrest.
It is old hat that the prosecution in the case of murder has the singular task of proving three ingredients to secure a conviction: the occurrence of death, that the death was caused by the unlawful act of commission or omission by the appellant; and that the appellant had malice aforethought as he committed the said ofience.
We align ourselves with the trial judge's findings. The conduct of the appellant at the material time seems to have been calculated.
As this is the first appeal, the court is under a duty to reconsider the evidence afresh, analyse and evaluate it, bearing in mind that the trial court had the benefit of seeing and hearing the witnesses
Issues in the judgment
#The appeal number and neutral citation are not stated anywhere in the judgment; the case number field could not be filled from the document.
Key timeline
#Practical implications
#Frequently asked questions
#Cite this brief
#Cite this brief
Caselaw, "Bundi v Republic (Criminal Appeal 149 of 2018) [2025] KECA 1231 (KLR)", Case Analysis (2025). Criminal Appeal (not stated in judgment). Source: https://new.kenyalaw.org/akn/ke/judgment/keca/2025/1231/eng@2025-07-04
Suggested citation format for research notes or client memos. Always verify the original judgment before relying on any point.