It’s wrong time to start toying with the idea of death penalty

Countries and societies at times go through very difficult times. Currently many Ugandans are in fear because of the people who are killed by mysterious gunmen riding on motorcycles. In such times, people ask for questions and are desperate for answers.
The powers that be more often than not will opt for knee-jerk reactions. In that realm lies curfews, a covert acquiescence to mob action, detention without trial, torture, Operation Wembley style, shoot-on-sight, massive arrests and detentions, plus parading and screening suspected criminals in hasty identification parades (panda gari) many times devoid of logic and order.

The mother of all these measures is the death penalty. Here those in power will want to demonstrate to anyone intending to break the law that the wheels of justice will run over them to their death. When I think about the death penalty, I recall a wonderful book written in 2006 by celebrated author John Grisham titled The Innocent Man. It is a book about a real life experience in the USA in a county called Ada in Oakland. A man, Ronald Williamson and a friend named Dennis Fritz, were arrested and in 1988, tried separately and found guilty for the 1982 brutal killing of a local barmaid, Debbie Sue Carter.

The former was sentenced to death – he came within inches of being killed by the lethal injection- while the later got life imprisonment. Ten years later, they were acquitted. The book detailed deliberate ineptitude, malice, negligence and all manner of ill will by the prosecution intended to have the accused convicted by hook or crook for a murder they did not commit.

There was a reason that led to this travesty of justice. The county in which the murder had been committed had for a long time like Uganda experience homicides without anyone being prosecuted successfully. The residents were irate and petrified. So when they landed on these men, they conjured up a mountain of fabrications full of conjecture that passed for ‘irrefutable evidence’ and got a conviction.

Luckily, DNA evidence was used to save the men just in time. The judge, while acquitting Williamson, said in his life he had never seen such deliberate gross injustice conjured up by the State. Now that happened in one of the most credible and water-tight judicial systems in the world.
Look at Uganda. After the assassination of SSP Muhammad Kirumira a few weeks ago, the angry public felt like the biblical hungry man in Proverbs 27:7 “…for whom bitter tastes sweet.”
The politicians heard their cry and all over a sudden started serving them the poisonous hope of ‘hanging criminals on death row.’
You have to be worried. It is something that may come to pass just to ‘please’ the angry people who are hungry for justice.

The politicians are well aware of this popular trick that hides their failings in the entire issue of the breakdown of the criminal justice system. In matters such as these, it is easier to ride on a wave of emotions and send people to the gallows due to public demand – a demand ‘incited’ by the politicians. Uganda is at a point where 30 years of peace and tranquillity, the police force has for all intents and purposes, become the military wing of the ruling NRM party. Yet these are the people charged with keeping law and order, arresting suspects and gathering evidence leading to their prosecution, among others.

The Criminal Investigations Department (CID,) Special Branch and other bodies have faded in as far as their vital duties are concerned. Instead, the more martial and violent facets of the police like the Field Force Unit, which move hand in glove with the military, have gained more prominence. Apparently, their main objective is regime maintenance. They may not shy away to frame those who are perceived as a threat to the State.
In 2005, a case in which the State accused Kizza Besigye of rape; a matter that appeared like it intended to scuttle his presidential bid in the 2006 election, the CID Director went to court and told lie after lie. The case eventually collapsed under the weight of its own falsehoods. What if the lying mouths had succeeded in convincing the judge to sentence Besigye to death?

If we are ever going to think about the death penalty, then we have to have a credible criminal investigations machinery that is independent, credible and not partisan. The police unlike what it is today should be solely for keeping law and order for citizens without bias not a device to keep the regime in power. The prosecuting arm of the Judiciary and the Judiciary itself should be well funded and devoid of corruption to ensure that justice is not only done, but is seen to be done.
Otherwise, in the current situation where the government may abuse State institutions to plant evidence, prosecute selectively, especially for political reasons that help perpetuate the regime, we cannot be sure how many people end up at the gallows but should not be there and how many don’t go there but should be there. That is not equity. It is not justice.

Mr Sengoba is a commentator on political and social issues. [email protected]. Twitter:@nsengoba