Prisoners React to CJ Mutunga's Death Sentence Proposal

Inmates at the Naivasha Prison have protested the proposed law by Chief Justice (CJ) Willy Mutunga requiring all prisoners sentenced to death be hanged.

The prisoners, most of them either on death row or are serving a life sentence, argued that they were learning skills at the facility, which would help them if pardoned.

Jackson Wafula, 50, who was convicted in 2009, said the CJ's proposal would affect their lives in prison leaving them with no hope of refining their lives.

"We have made numerous strides under the reforms being implemented. We do not know who advised the judiciary on these new measures," Wafula was quoted by the Star.

The inmates at the facility, which accomodates about 3,500 with almost half on death row, further expressed that some of them were in school taking various courses hence they ought to be spared from the noose, despite the sentence.

Some of them also claimed that there was a significant number of convicts who were innocent with others still having their appeals pending in court.

The new guidelines affecting prisoners on death row were launched by CJ Mutunga last Thursday at the Supreme Court.

While the guidelines were deemed a huge blow to Capital offenders on death row, it brought relief to the disabled, elderly and terminally ill convicts, who could now receive special treatment while in custody or have their jail terms reduced.

In July 2010, the Court of Appeal found the mandatory death sentence to be unconstitutional while in 2013, the same court held that the courts had no preference in cases that attract a mandatory death sentence.

In Kenya, the death sentence has never been executed for the last 26 years.

 

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