What death sentence means in Kenya

On Wednesday, March 13, 2024, Joseph Irungu alias Jowie was sentenced to death after being found guilty of the murder of businesswoman Monica Kimani.

Jowie was found guilty of the murder of businesswoman Monica Kimani on February 9, 2024, but was sentenced to death on March 13 after his sentencing was postponed from March 8. 

In her ruling in February, Justice Nzioka said the prosecution had proven beyond reasonable doubt that Jowie murdered Monica.

Ms Kimani was brutally killed on the night of September 19, 2018, at her Lamuria Gardens apartment in Nairobi.

Jowie’s death sentence has sprung up the conversation on the death penalty in Kenya and what it means to be handed the death penalty. 

Everyone has had different opinions regarding this subject as some think that Jowie is going to face the hangman’s noose in prison in case he doesn’t appeal his death sentence in higher courts and get a favorable ruling.

So what exactly does a death sentence mean?

A “death sentence” typically refers to a legal penalty imposed by a court of law, usually for the most serious crimes, such as murder or treason, where the convicted individual is sentenced to death.

This punishment is carried out through various means depending on the jurisdiction, which may include methods such as lethal injection, electrocution, gas chamber, hanging, or firing squad.

However, this is not what it means, or rather applies, in Kenya when one is issued a death sentence.

While thousands have been sentenced to death for various capital offenses in Kenya no one has been executed since 1987 when Hezekiah Ochuka was hanged.

Ochuka was handed the death penalty after he was found guilty of treason for his role in the 1982 failed coup.

In December 2017, a significant decision by the Supreme Court deemed the compulsory imposition of the death penalty unconstitutional, prompting the establishment of the Taskforce on the Review of the Mandatory Death Sentence.

Kenya’s Constitution guarantees the right to life for all individuals, except those convicted of serious crimes like treason, murder, or violent robbery. 

Presidents Mwai Kibaki in 2009 and Uhuru Kenyatta in 2016 commuted all death sentences to life imprisonment, effectively converting them to life imprisonment, which in Kenya means incarceration until death without the possibility of early release, unlike other offenders.

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) has been leading efforts to abolish the death sentence altogether.

In 2007 and 2015 the Kenyan Parliament voted against the abolition of the death penalty when bills were initiated by individual lawmakers.

Kenya is among a handful of African countries that are considered de facto abolitionist states, meaning that they have not executed in 10 years.

KNCHR last year lauded President William Ruto when he reduced the death sentence imposed on capital offenders to life sentences.

Despite the Supreme Court’s declaration in 2017 that the mandatory death penalty is unconstitutional, the courts still hand down death sentences as was the case with Jowie on March 13, 2024.