Pendakwa Raya v KHALID REDZA BIN SHUIB

Case Significance

Illustrates the sentencing of culpable homicide under section 304(a) of the Penal Code within the 15-to-20-year range and the consecutive-sentencing analysis: where two killings lack proximity in time, place or purpose, the one-transaction rule does not apply and the sentences may be ordered to run consecutively.

This High Court decision at Seremban concerns sentencing on a plea of guilty to culpable homicide not amounting to murder, and this record relates to the death of an adult victim. The accused had originally been charged with two separate offences of murder under section 302 of the Penal Code, tried together, arising from two deaths at the same address in Seremban, the bodies being discovered in the vicinity of Gunung Angsi after a passing hiker noticed a foul odour. After the prosecution began by calling its first witness, it offered two reduced charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under section 304(a) of the Penal Code, one for each death. This case concerns the charge that the accused, with the intention of causing bodily injury likely to cause death, caused the death of the adult victim over a period in March 2022. The accused pleaded guilty to the reduced charge and was convicted. In sentencing, the court reviewed the sentencing trend for section 304(a) offences, which ranges between about 15 and 20 years' imprisonment, drawing on a body of comparable cases. For this charge, the court imposed a sentence of 15 years' imprisonment from the date of arrest. Turning to whether the two sentences should run concurrently or consecutively, the court applied the one-transaction rule and the totality principle, testing for proximity of time and place and continuity of action and purpose, following the four-element test in Jayaraman v PP and the guidance in Bachik Abdul Rahman v PP. Finding no nexus between the two killings, which occurred on different dates and involved different victims, it exercised its discretion to order the sentences to run consecutively. The accused appealed against the sentence. The court reiterated that its sentencing discretion had to balance the interest of the offender against the interests of the victim and the community, with the public interest an uppermost consideration, in fixing a term within the established range.