JUDGMENT OF THE COURT
Mr. Kaigai, the learned Senior State Counsel, conceded on behalf of the Republic that the conviction on count two which the superior court, on first appeal to that court, sustained against the appellant herein, is clearly unsupportable. The appellant Douglas Maina Gathogo had been tried alone on five counts of robbery with violence contrary to section 296 (2) of the Penal Code. The Principal Magistrate at Kibera had acquitted the appellant on counts four and five and the basis of the acquittal on those counts by the Magistrate was that the persons named as complainants in the two counts had failed to come and testify in court. The learned trial Magistrate was clearly right in acquitting the appellant on the two counts. But the Magistrate had convicted him on counts one to three and sentenced him to death. He appealed to the superior court and that court, in a judgment comprised in about one and a quarter typed pages contented itself by stating as follows:-
“The app…