The Court of Appeal has released a man who had been sentenced to 27 years imprisonment for the murder of his wife after it found that the high court judge imposed a sentence different from what had been agreed upon in the plea-bargain agreement.
Ahimbisibwe Kateregga had been arrested for using a panga to cut off the head of his wife.
However, after six years on remand, he agreed to plead guilty to murder and a pre-bargain agreement was entered with the Director of Public Prosecutions in 2015.
In the agreement, he was to be given a seven-year imprisonment sentence. However, when the matter was taken before the trial judge, Wilson Masalu Musene, he considered the sentence very lenient and instead sentenced Kateregga to 27 years imprisonment.
Aggrieved, Kateregga appealed the decision of the court arguing that the Judge had errored in law when he sentenced him to 27 years’ imprisonment contrary to the plea bargain agreement.
He contended that the sentence was not only harsh and excessive but also based on wrong legal principles leading to a miscarriage of justice.
Kateregga through his lawyer Sheila Kihumuro Musinguzi told the court that the judge under the plea-bargaining rules had no power to impose his sentence different from what had been agreed upon.
If indeed he felt the sentence was very light, the lawyer argued, he would have invalidated the agreement and sent the case back for full trial.
The DPP lawyer Sharifa Nalwanga also agreed with this principle.
In their unanimous ruling, the Judges who included; Richard Butera, the Deputy Chief Justice, Eva Luswata and Oscar John Kihika held that the agreement had to be respected.
“It is evident that the trial Judge accepted part of the agreement between the parties, that is, that the Appellant pleaded guilty as he did. However, he did not accept the sentence that was recommended to the court…It is clear…that the court may reject the plea bargain agreement if it will result in a miscarriage of justice.
They added “However, the reasons that the trial Judge gave for augmenting the sentence that was agreed upon in the plea bargain, did not amount to a finding that there was a miscarriage of justice.
The trial Judge was simply of the opinion that the sentence that was agreed upon was too low, given the facts.
He considered that this was a case that should have attracted the maximum sentence of death, but was willing to spare the Appellant because he had readily pleaded guilty, and in light of reforms ushered in by plea bargaining,” the court held.
It added that an accused person is entitled to an assurance that a sentence agreed upon in the plea bargain agreement will be respected and will not be substituted with a Judge-imposed sentence.
Where a promise is made to an accused person in the plea- bargaining process, that promise must be fulfilled as though it was a contract between the parties.
In our view, the agreed sentence of seven years imprisonment appeared to have been on the lower side for the offence of murder which was committed by the Appellant against his spouse.
It was a gruesome murder carried out in cold blood. Given those facts, we do not consider a sentence of 27 years imprisonment that was imposed by the trial judge as being harsh and excessive in the circumstances.
However, the trial Judge’s only option in the circumstances was to reject the plea-bargain agreement altogether, but not to impose a sentence of his own.
By doing so, the Judge imposed an illegal sentence contrary to law, one that cannot stand and we do set it aside,” the judges ruled.
They subsequently sentenced Kateregga to seven years imprisonment starting June 2015 when he was convicted and sentenced.
Having already served more than seven years, since 2015, the judges ordered that he be immediately released from jail.
English 