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Kentucky judge rejects death sentence for child killer claiming life term will be a "hell more suited to you"

By Douglas A. Berman

A helpful reader alerted me to this remarkable new sentencing story from Kentucky in which a sentence judge rejected the prosecutor's death sentence request for a child killer claiming that such a sentence would be too easy for the defendant.  Here are the details: Saying the death penalty was not a harsh enough punishment, a judge ordered for Cecil New II to serve the rest of his life in prison, surrounded by ?bigger, meaner men who have nothing to lose.? ?He will fear for his life every day,? Judge Judith McDonald-Burkman told the family of 4-year-old Ivan Aguilar-Cano, who disappeared while playing outside his home near Churchill Downs in 2007 and was murdered by New.  ?He will wish this court had put him on death row.? Since a November hearing in which prosecutors asked that New be sentenced to death, McDonald-Burkman said she had investigated the differences between the life of a death-row inmate and one serving a life sentence...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on December 17, 2010 (boomark / email).