Kabuki Mwaura, sometimes called Mwangi Mwaura, the appellant, was sentenced by the High Court at Nyeri (Cockar J) to 14 years imprisonment on March 28, 1978 when he pleaded guilty to manslaughter contrary to section 205 of the Penal Code (cap 63). He was twenty-two years old.
About two years later (April 8, 1990) he thumb printed his notice of appeal against this sentence.
The delay, he swears in his affidavit of March 29, 1980, is due to his relatives being unable to raise the fees for an advocate to represent him in this court and to prepare and file his grounds of appeal.
His application for leave to urge his appeal was not opposed by the learned state counsel for the republic, and we exercise the discretion of this court in favour of the appellant.
Before we consider them and the reply of the state counsel we wish the learned judge wrote in his notes on sentence that he thought the republic rightly reduced the charge from murder to manslaughter because the appellant had been drinking …