Murder, treason and armed robbery are capital crimes.

Murder, treason and armed robbery are capital crimes. Courts in Kenya apply the death penalty to violent robberies with particular rigour. Judges, not juries, pass death sentences.
The election, on December 27, 2002, of the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) brought to an end 39 years of Kenya African National Union (KANU) rule and a commitment to abolish the death penalty by the new government. President Mwai Kibaki, already on February 25, 2003, commuted to life the death sentences of 195 prisoners, and released 28 others who had already served 15-20 years and had a good conduct record.
The Narc government, committed to the introduction of a new constitution, opted to include abolition in it.
On March 9, 2004 Kenya’s National Constitutional Conference (NCC) - mandated to review a new draft constitution - decided to abolish the death penalty for treason and robbery with violence but retain it for murder and the rape of minors.
This setback suffered by the government by the Constitutional Conference’s decision to restrict the number of capital crimes rather than do away with the death penalty was immediately contested by Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Kiraitu Murungi, who slammed the move as “retrogressive”. Murungi, a staunch abolitionist even as an opposition backbencher, said his government was determined not to hang anyone because the death penalty constituted an inhuman punishment. On March 10, 2004, he announced that President Kibaki had commuted all death sentences. According to government statistics, there were 2,618 death row inmates in Kenya up to October 2003.
The draft of the new constitution approved on March 15, 2004 by the NCC and referred to as the Bomas Draft after the place where the Conference met, was reviewed and amended by the Kenyan Parliament. The new version, called the Kilifi draft, was approved by 102 votes to 61 on July 21, 2005 and replaced the Bomas draft. The Bomas draft transferred much of the power currently vested in the presidency to a newly-created post of prime minister whereas the Kilifi draft allows for a powerful head of state and a prime minister with little authority. The Kilifi draft retained the death penalty. The draft constitution was however rejected by a popular referendum in November 2005, in what was widely regarded as a protest against President Kibaki, rather than a vote on the constitution itself. Kibaki had come to power promising free primary education, a new constitution and an to end corruption, but had so far made good only on the first promise.
In August 2012, the scope of the death penalty was expanded with the signature by President Mwai Kibaki of the Kenya Defence Forces Act.
The last hanging in Kenya took place in 1987, when the August 1, 1982, coup plotters Hezekiah Ochuka and Pancras Oteyo Okumu were executed following a court-martial.
In July 2012, the UN Human Rights Committee expressed regret that a total of 1,582 convicts still faced the death penalty, and that the death penalty applied to crimes such as robbery with violence that did not qualify as pmost serious crimesq within the meaning of Article 6(2) of the ICCPR. The Committee recommended to abolish the death penalty and accede to the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR. It suggested that the state should intensify public awareness campaigns against the death penalty.
On December 18, 2014, Kenya, as in previous years, abstained on the Resolution on a Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty at the UN General Assembly.