The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has secured a 12-year prison sentence for a Kisumu man convicted of the manslaughter of his wife of 18 years.
Jared Otieno Otieno was sentenced by the High Court in Kisumu after Justice Joe Omido found him guilty of unlawfully causing the death of Caroline Aoko Onyango at Nyalenya village in Muhoroni Sub-County.
Otieno had initially been charged with murder contrary to Section 203 as read with Section 204 of the Penal Code, Cap 63 of the Laws of Kenya.
However, the court ultimately convicted him of the lesser offence of manslaughter under Section 202 as read with Section 205 of the Penal Code.
Under Kenyan law, Section 202 defines manslaughter as causing the death of another person through an unlawful act or omission.
Unlike murder, which requires proof of malice aforethought, manslaughter can be established where a person unlawfully causes death without the prosecution proving the specific mental element required for murder.
Section 205 provides that a person convicted of manslaughter is liable to imprisonment for life, although the court has discretion to impose an appropriate sentence depending on the circumstances of the case.
The prosecution told the court that the offence occurred between November 9 and 10, 2022, when Otieno unlawfully assaulted his wife, causing injuries that eventually led to her death.
In his judgment, Justice Omido found that the prosecution, led by Prosecution Counsel Mercy Mutheu Muema, had proved beyond reasonable doubt that Aoko died from blunt force trauma to the head following an unlawful assault by Otieno.
The judge, however, found that the prosecution had not established that Otieno acted with malice, leading to the conviction for manslaughter rather than murder.
In seeking a custodial sentence, Muema highlighted the circumstances surrounding the death and its impact on the couple's four children.
She told the court that the deceased was a young woman whose children had been left psychologically affected and living in distress following the loss of their mother.
The prosecution further argued that Otieno had failed in his responsibility to protect his family, describing the killing as a case of gender-based violence perpetrated by a spouse.
Justice Omido agreed that the circumstances warranted imprisonment, finding that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating circumstances.
“Having considered the aggravating and mitigating circumstances in their totality, I find the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances to an extent that it makes a custodial sentence necessary,” the judge said.
Otieno was subsequently sentenced to 12 years in prison, with the sentence backdated to November 23, 2022, when he was first remanded in custody.
The decision to reckon the sentence from the date of remand means the period already spent in custody before conviction is taken into account in calculating the sentence.
Kenyan courts have applied this principle in sentencing under the Criminal Procedure Code, including in manslaughter cases.
The conviction followed a murder charge that was reduced to manslaughter after the court found that the element of malice aforethought necessary to sustain a murder conviction had not been proved.
Under Kenyan law, murder requires proof that the accused caused death through an unlawful act or omission and acted with malice aforethought.
Manslaughter applies where death is unlawfully caused but the required element of malice aforethought is not established.
Otieno has been granted 14 days to appeal against the conviction and/or sentence.
