Killers could have to spend the rest of their natural lives behind bars after appeal court judges increased the minimum prison term for murder.
The judges said the 12-year minimum sentence which was often imposed in murder cases was generally too lenient.
And they said the worst killers should spend longer than 30 years in prison - the previous maximum sentence.
The judges issued the new guidelines in response to an appeal by Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini QC.
While I can accept the argument for increasing the tariff within a life sentence when it is deemed to be too low, however, it makes a mockery of justice when it goes too far, for example, "He said it would be open to a sentencing judge in a murder case "to specify a period which was in excess, even well in excess, of the offender's anticipated lifespan"". This is overkill! What do they intend doing, leaving a dead murderer in a prison cell until his time is up and then bury the bones? The death penalty has been abolished, all this will do is bring it back in through the back door.
No comments:
Post a Comment