{Accused persons are pleading guilty to crimes they did not commit not to \u201ccomplicate\u201d matters, a High Court judge has said.}<\/p>\n
Homa Bay High Court Judge David Majanja said that the lack of legal knowledge had also deterred many inmates from filing appeals against court judgments.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are people who look innocent but due to language barrier and fear of being remanded for long, they simply plead to the charges by saying “yes afande” for fear that continuing with the case to full trial would complicate their cases,\u201d said Mr Justice Majanja.<\/p>\n
He spoke when he opened a paralegal training workshop convened by International Commission of Jurists for Homa Bay prison inmates.<\/p>\n
\u201cLack of knowledge on basic legal affairs have made many convicts who deserve appeals suffer in prisons because they do not know where to start from. I hope this training will offer our inmates opportunity to understand legal channels that can enable them get justice,\u201d Mr Majanja said.<\/p>\n
{{FEAR FACTOR}}<\/p>\n
The judge said the Judiciary is currently undergoing transformation aimed at offering every accused person an opportunity to be heard and get justice.<\/p>\n
The officer in charge of Homa Bay Prison, Jonas Gotondo, said his experience had revealed that many prisoners suffer jail terms mainly because of fear.<\/p>\n
He said such fear makes remandees plead guilty of cases that they would have easily won.
\nLocal Chief Magistrate Ms Patricia Gichohi told suspects, including children who are accused of murder and robbery, that they would have lawyers hired by the State.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany inmates get jailed due to failure to articulate their issues clearly. Our courts are now committed to ensuring that suspects access justice,\u201d said Mr Gichohi.<\/p>\n
International Commission of Jurists Deputy Executive Director Elsy Sainna expressed optimism that the training would help in decongesting the prison.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel this knowledge will help a number of inmates defend themselves and get freedom and hence decongest prisons,\u201d said the official.<\/p>\n
Source:Daily Nation:[Fear forcing innocent people to plead guilty, judge says->http:\/\/www.nation.co.ke\/news\/Fear-forcing-innocent-people-to-plead-guilty–judge-says\/-\/1056\/3080350\/-\/mnk111z\/-\/index.html]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Accused persons are pleading guilty to crimes they did not commit not to \u201ccomplicate\u201d matters, a High Court judge has said.} Homa Bay High Court Judge David Majanja said that the lack of legal knowledge had also deterred many inmates from filing appeals against court judgments. \u201cThere are people who look innocent but due to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000072237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[99],"byline":[2461],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-justice","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-daily-nation"],"bylines":[{"id":2461,"name":"Daily Nation","slug":"daily-nation","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2461,"name":"Daily Nation","slug":"daily-nation","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":{"id":2000072237,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23276.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23276.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23276.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23276.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23276.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23276.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000072237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23276"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=23276"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=23276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}