N2546

PAPUA NEW GUINEA

[IN THE NATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE]

CR NO. 1413 of 2002

THE STATE

-V-

BEN SIMAKOT SIMBU
(No.2)

VANIMO:	KANDAKASI, J.
2004: 18th, 22nd and 25th March

DECISION ON SENTENCE

CRIMINAL LAW – PRACTICE & PROCEDURE – Sentencing - Sentencing offenders a community responsibility – Necessary to require and consider inputs of the community – Community input not binding on the Court – Court duty bound to consider whether or not to act on the views of the community – Principles guiding that considered and applied – Constitution s.158(1). 

CRIMINAL LAW - Sentence – Double wilful murder – Murder of mother and child after rape of mother - Piece of iron used to effect fatal blows to the head of deceased with intent to kill – No dispute worse case of wilful murder – Only contest whether death penalty or life imprisonment – Death penalty imposed - Criminal Code s. 299.

Cases cited:
Public Prosecutor v. Don Hale (1998) SC564.
Re Application by Anderson Agiru (08/10/01) SC671.
Application of John Mua Nilkare (15/04/97) SC536.
 Avia Aihi v. The State [1981] PNGLR 81.
Tau Jim Anis & Ors. v. The State (25/05/00) SC642.
The State v. Irox Winston (Unreported judgment delivered on 13/03/03) N2347.
Goli Golu v. The State [1979] PNGLR 653.
Ure Hane v. The State [1984] PNGLR 105.
 Avia Aihi (No 3) v. The State [1982] PNGLR 92.
The State v. Andrew Keake (Unreported judgment) N2079.
The State v. Ian Napoleon Setep (Unreported judgment) N1478.
The State –v- Yapes Paege & Relya Tanda [1994] PNGLR 65.
The State v. Godfrey Edwin Ahupa (Unreported judgment) N1789.
Ombusu –v- The State [1996] PNGLR 335.
The State –v- Steven Loke Ume, Charles Patrick Kaona & Greg Wawa Kavoa, (a decision of Woods J. in Kimbe on 7th February 1997).
Steven Loke Ume, Charles Patrick Kaona & Greg Wawa Kavoa –v- The State, Unreported Supreme Court Decision in SCRA 10 of 1997 and dated 4th May 2000.
The State v. Arua Maraga Hariki (Unreported judgment delivered on 03/02/03) N2332.
Tony Imunu Api v. The State (Unreported judgment delivered on 29/08/01) SC684.
The State v. Fredinand Naka Penge (Unreported judgment delivered on 24/05/02) N2244.

Counsel:
F. K. Popeu for the State
D. Kari for the Prisoner

25th March 2004

KANDAKASI J:	On the 18th of this month, you were found guilty on two charges of wilfully murdering a mother and child namely Wupiano Kame Menapol and Francisca Kame Menapol on 19th July 2002 here in Vanimo. 

Address on Sentence

I then asked you to address the Court on your sentence and you chose to leave that to your lawyer. Before making his submissions on your behalf, your lawyer informed the Court of your personal and family backgrounds. He then proceeded to make submissions on your behalf mainly arguing against the death penalty which is the prescribe maximum for wilful murder cases. He instead argued for the lesser penalty of life imprisonment. This argument acknowledges that the offences you committed in the particular circumstances in which you committed them is of the worse type of wilful murder.

The State agrees your case falls into the worse category of wilful murder cases. Accordingly, it argues for an imposition of the maximum prescribed penalty of death and not the lesser one of life imprisonment.

In the course of the parties’ submissions, the Court asked counsel whether they were agreeable to the Court asking for and receiving community input on the kind of sentence you should receive. This was in appreciation of the fact that criminal sentencing is a community responsibility. Both counsels were agreeable to the Court receiving an input from the community on the kind of sentence you should receive.

The Supreme Court in Public Prosecutor v. Don Hale, emphasis the need for inputs from the community in relation to criminal sentencing in the context of a suspended sentence in these terms:

"… a further help to the court would be a community report from the community to which the offender belongs and whether the community seeing that the incident happened within that community, has any views on an appropriate punishment or whether the community is prepared to assist with any community management of any bond period. The courts are bound under the philosophy of the constitution to be in touch with the aspirations and attitudes of the people of PNG and the punishment for criminals definitely as an effect on the ordinary people. So community involvement with the punishment of offenders should be considered."
							(Emphasis supplied)

These principles, in my view, in a more practical way acknowledges and allows for an exercise at least in that limited way by the people themselves of their judicial power. The Constitution does acknowledge and affirms in s. 158(1) and elsewhere that the judicial power which the Courts exercise belongs to the people. The Supreme Court judicially acknowledged this in a number of cases, such as that of Re Application by Anderson Agiru and Application of John Mua Nilkare citing with approval Avia Aihi v. The State.

In subsequent judgments of the Supreme Court, as in Tau Jim Anis & Ors. v. The State, these principles have been cited with approval. Many other judgments of both the Supreme and the National Court have adopted and applied these principles. Some of these are my own judgments as in The State v. Irox Winston, where I said:

"The Courts are charged with the judicial power of the people under our constitutional framework to appropriately deal with offenders on their behalf. The Courts therefore, have a constitutional duty to seriously take into account the peoples wishes in relation the kind of sentence an offender should receive in each case when they give consideration to the appropriate penalty to be imposed. Not only that, they should ensure at the same time that, the kind of sentence they arrive at is reflective of the people’s wish. This is in addition to taking into account all the other considerations a sentencing judge should take into account and then arrive at a sentence that is reflective of all of those considerations."

In the present case, the community’s input is now before the Court. The Court will consider it, in the same breath as the other relevant factors for consideration before arriving at a sentence for you. For now however, I turn to the relevant facts.

The Facts

The facts are fully set out in the judgment on your verdict. However, for the purposes of sentencing, I note that on the day of the offence, you went to the deceased house. There you found the deceased woman sitting with her small two years old child and you asked her to give you a live chicken on credit. She refused the first time you asked and so you repeated your request two more times. On the third, you got angry and grabbed the woman.

The woman struggled with you and you eventually overpowered her and threw her on the ground. As she was on the ground, you put your shorts and pants down and then proceeded to have forceful sexual intercourse with her. After you finished your forced sexual intercourse with her, you picked up an old but still strong piece of iron that was there and hit the woman across her head as she lay on the ground, with intent to kill her. She died instantly. You then used the same piece of iron and proceeded to hit the woman’s child on the head, who was by then crying and watching helplessly. The child died instantly too. When you did that, you also intended to kill the child and you achieved it.

After having killed the woman and her child, you fled from the scene and the township of Vanimo to avoid arrest and prosecution. This was on the same day of the rape and double murders. You left for Aitape and your home village by motor vehicle and then by foot. Fortunately, police were able to apprehend you at Aitape when you got there and had you brought back, charged and kept in custody awaiting your trial.

On the presentation of an indictment with two counts of wilful murder against you, you denied the charges. That necessitated a trial and after that process, the Court found you guilty.

As noted, there is no argument that this is one of the worse cases of wilful murder in serious aggravating circumstances. It is a case of cold-blooded murder of two innocent and unarmed persons, who were in no position to cause any harm or danger to you. These happened immediately after the commission of another serious offence, namely rape of a married woman who was with her child. 

The Offence and Sentencing Practice

Section 299 of the Criminal Code creates the offence of wilful murder and prescribes its penalty. The penalty prescribed is death. This is subject to s. 19 of the Code, which has allowed for sentences other than death penalties. 

It is trite law that the maximum sentence prescribed in any offence is for the worse category of the offence under consideration. In the case of wilful murder, the Supreme Court made that clear in Goli Golu v. The State. Numerous other judgments such as the one in Ure Hane v. The State and Avia Aihi (No 3) v. The State reiterate that.

Bredmeyer, J. in Ure Hane v. The State, without exhausting the list, provided the following list of cases he considered as serious kinds of wilful murder from pages 107 – 109 of the judgment:

1.	Wilful murder committed in the cause of committing a theft, robbery, a break and enter, or a rape.
2.	Wilful murder of policeman or a prison warder acting in the execution of his duty.
3.	Wilful murder committed in the cause of or for the purposes of resisting, avoiding or preventing lawful arrest or assisting in an escape from a lawful custody.
4.	Wilful murder of a person in police or court custody.
5.	Wilful murder in a payback killing situation of a completely innocent man.
6.	Wilful murder in a second or third murder.
7.	Any murder where the offender has a long record of violence such that he is likely to commit such offences in the future.
8.	Wilful murder of the Governor General, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Prison Commander, the Speaker of the National Parliament, the Chief Justice, a Bishop, a Visiting Prime Minister, the Pope, or other VIP’s.

His Honour then said at p. 109 of his judgment:

"I consider that if a wilful murder falls into any one of the above categories, a Judge should seriously consider life imprisonment as the appropriate punishment. He should not automatically impose a life sentence but must seriously consider it. Having categorised the crime as one in which life imprisonment should be seriously considered, the trial judge then must consider the seriousness of the particular murder in the case of seriousness of the murders in that category."

Since then the law changed in terms of the prescribed penalty. As I noted in The State v. Andrew Keake after referring to Goli Golu v. The State, Ure Hane v. The State and Avia Aihi (No. 3) v. The State:

"Since the judgment in those cases, the penalty for wilful murder has been increased from life imprisonment to death by an amendment to the penalty provision in 1991. Accordingly, the principles enunciated in those cases apply with modification to say that the maximum penalty of death should be reserved for the "worst type" of wilful murder cases."

On first glance, it might appear, simple but when it comes to actually deciding whether a case is worse or not, it is much more difficult. My brother, Justice Sevua spoke of that difficulty in The State v. Ian Napoleon Setep in these terms:

"Whilst it is true that different types of wilful murder have been described as the worst type in Ure Hane, I am of the view that it is difficult to distinguish between wilful murders because they all involve intentional killing with death as the consequence. Whether a wilful murder is perpetrated by the use of a gun, axe, knife or some other dangerous weapons, it is quite difficult, in my view, to consider one wilful murder different to another. There are different types of homicide under the Criminal Code, (ie manslaughter, murder and wilful murder) however in my view, it is hard to say one wilful murder is worse than the other, although, occasionally, one can say there are killings that are more vicious or barbaric than others."

Earlier Woods J. in The State –v- Yapes Paege & Relya Tanda, in view appropriately, observed:

"But how can wilful murder, after the clear statutory distinction of it from two other levels of unlawful killings – murder and manslaughter – lend itself to degree? There cannot be a more wilful murder. Oh, yes, there may be different levels of violence used, but the end result is the same. The victim, if he could talk from beyond the grave, would surely see no difference between one gunshot to the head and four shots to the head, whereas in a grievous bodily harm there would be a difference between one axe wound and several axe wounds. Wilful murder is the intention to kill and the carrying out of that intention, the end result of which, regardless of the amount of violence used, is the extinction of human life."

My brother Kirriwom J. made a similar remark in The State v. Godfrey Edwin Ahupa where he said:

"… when you look at all these cases of deliberate and calculated murders, whether they involved pre-planning or not, whether they were carried out swiftly and quickly or slowly and in the most gruesome and barbaric or agonising manner, or whether the victims are gunned down, axed, knife or clubbed to death by heavy or blunt objects, the end result is all the same, a human life has been prematurely terminated."

As Woods J. observed correctly in my view, judges have had a much difficult time trying to say when a wilful murder is worse, and how they have avoided doing that. This is evident for example in Ure Hane –v- The State, where one Judge recited a list of different categories of wilful murders and the other two focused on the extenuating circumstances.

Similarly, in the earlier case of Avia Aihi –v- The State, whilst the members of the Court used the words "worst case type" or most serious type of case," there was no listing of the worst type of cases. Each member, instead, referred to the surrounding extenuating or aggravating features and decided accordingly. In the same case, the then Chief Justice admitted at p. 96, in these terms:

"What is ‘the most serious type of case’ of any offence is very difficult to define with scientific precision. I cannot attempt a definition myself." 

If anything, this difficulty in my view demonstrates the fact that the sanctity of life itself is not easily open to categorizations. As such, there is an abundance of difference of opinions as to what amounts to a worse case of wilful murder, warranting the maximum penalty of death. It is thus possible that one judge could find a case to be a worse case of wilful murder and another judge could easily come to a different conclusion, given that there is no fixed mathematical or scientific formula to go by. In so doing, the kind of sentences imposed may differ greatly.

Amidst this difficulty, there appears to be consistency in approaches by the Courts. A case with more aggravating features could qualify to be a worse case, whilst one with more factors in mitigation would be less serious, even though they will all be wilful murder cases, where there is an intention to kill.

Since Parliament increased the maximum penalty of life imprisonment to death for the offence of wilful murder, the National Court imposed the death penalty in three cases already. The first case was The State v. Ombusu, an unreported National Court Judgment, dated 17th February 1995. On appeal, a five men bench Supreme Court quashed the National Court judgment on technical grounds.

The second one was in the case of The State v. Steven Loke Ume, Charles Patrick Kaona & Greg Wawa Kavoa, which was a decision of Woods J. in Kimbe on 7th February 1997. The appellants appealed to the Supreme Court on 11th February 1997 against both conviction and sentence of death. However, after grant of legal aid, the Public Solicitor filed a supplementary notice of appeal on 23rd July, 1997 in which they appealed against conviction only. The Supreme Court comprising Amet CJ., Kapi DCJ. and Sevua J. dismissed the appeal against conviction on 4th May, 2000, so the death penalty remains undisturbed.

The third and more recent one is the decision of his Honour Salika J. in The State v. Arua Maraga Hariki. In that case, the prisoner killed two young men with whom he had been drinking alcohol. He killed them by strangling their necks. The evidence did not directly show that the prisoner killed both persons but only one of them. The Court found that he killed the other as well based on circumstantial evidence, pointing to such a conclusion.

Earlier, in Tony Imunu Api v. The State, the Supreme Court of which, I was a member, was of the view that the killing in that case was of the worse kind. That was a case of killing of an innocent school student in bizarre circumstances. When police eventually located the deceased body, he was lying naked face down with faeces still on his anus. Medical evidence showed multiple depressed fractures to the skull. On the left frontal area were a 3 cm diameter crepitus and a 4 cm crepitus on the right. On the left temporal area was a 10 cm cross-depressed fracture while a 6 cm fracture was on the right side. There were multiple abrasions on the right shoulder and abdomen and faeces found around the rectum with dilation of 5 cm and some excoriation of rectal wall.

In dismissing an appeal against both conviction and sentence of life imprisonment, the Supreme Court said:

"We are of the opinion that this was a worst type of wilful murder. A 14 year old school student had his skull crushed in different places. He died in bizarre circumstances, and we think that this is an appropriate case warranting the death sentence. We allude to this because we cannot see any motive other than a blatant and complete disregard for the sanctity of a young life which was terminated prematurely. To describe this killing as bizarre or brutal would clearly be an understatement, in our view. We therefore hold the view that the prisoner should have been sentenced to death.
…
… we consider that the National Court should in appropriate circumstances, consider that Parliament had amended s.299 of the Criminal Code for a purpose. In the light of the prevalent commission of wilful murder in the country, some of which can be categorized as very serious cases of unlawful killings, the National Court must not ignore the concerns of the community at large. We think the time has come for the National Court to seriously consider paying some attention to serious wilful murder cases, and where appropriate, impose the death penalty. We say this without in anyway trying to usurp the power and independence of trial Judges in the National Court."

A careful consideration of these cases and a general consideration of the past sentences in wilful murder cases, reveal an important trend. The offence of wilful murder carried a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. This did not deter people who were inclined to killing committing the offence and was becoming very prevalent. Parliament therefore amended s. 299 of the Code and increased the penalty of life imprisonment to death. Despite this legislative change, no death penalties were imposed until The State v. Ombusu, when on 17th February 1995, Doherty J imposed it for the first time. Not many judges followed that courage until The State v. Steven Loke Ume, Charles Patrick Kaona & Greg Wawa Kavoa, when Woods J imposed the death penalty for the second time almost two years later on 7th February 1997. Since then, many wilful murder cases have gone before the National Court, but the death penalty hwas not been imposed until Salika J. decided to impose it in The State v. Arua Maraga Hariki on the 3rd of February 2003.

No doubt, therefore, there has been great reluctance in the National Court to impose the death penalty. On the other hand, offenders have not shown any reluctance in committing serious wilful and other types of killing. Offenders appear to be finding it easier to readily commit wilful murders and get away with a determinate term of years to life imprisonment. There simply appears to be no deterrence by the kind of sentences in the majority of the wilful murder cases that have proceeded to trial and concluded with a sentence. In view of this, the highest Court of the land in Tony Imunu Api v. The State, has suggested that the death penalty should be seriously considered.

Your Case

Bearing all of these in mind, I now turn to considering an appropriate sentence for you. I commence that process, by first taking into account the factors against you. Firstly, a mother and child were in their family home on the fatal day of their premature death. You turned up at their house and demanded for a chicken on credit purchase basis. Even though that demand was not received well, you persisted on it. There is no evidence of you contributing in any way to the raising of the chicken you were demanding from them. Similarly, there is no evidence of the deceased or their family owing you anything. It seems you could not accept a no for an answer. 

Secondly, when you found that you could not succeed in your baseless demand, you became very violent. You attacked the mother who was then with her child. You grabbed the mother and threw her on the ground and after removing her cloths forcefully, you proceeded to rape her.

Thirdly, as if the rape on the mother was not enough, you took a piece of iron and effected fatal blows to her head, killing her instantly. According to the medical report, it is clear that the mother had a struggle with you. This is evidenced by a finding of lacerations from a sharp object on her 4th and 5th fingers. The medical report also speaks of a deep laceration over the left side of the skull remitting in a compound fracture. The medical report further speaks of two massive skull fractures involving the left temperoparietal bone (compound) and left side of the frontal bone (compound). Furthermore, vaginal swab taken from the mother revealed large number of spermatozoa.

The evidence does not show that the deceased did something, such as attacking you or sound the alarm. Instead, it is clear that this was a cold-blooded murder. Indeed, in your record of interview with the police, you admitted to having the intention to kill her when you hit her with a piece of iron on her head. 

Fourthly, the mother was with a little two years old child. This seemed not to bother you one bit because of what you did. You violently dealt with the mother in the way you did as if the child was not there. There is no evidence of the child causing the mother not to give you the chicken or otherwise prevent the mother from granting you your demand. He did not attack you or sound the alarm or otherwise took steps to stop you from raping the mother and then kill her. His only problem was being there at the wrong time. But, where else could the child have been if not with the mother. No doubt, your attack on the mother would have greatly shaken the child.

Fifthly, you took the same piece of iron you used to kill the mother to strike the child and he died instantly. The medical report states that there was a massive fracture to the child’s skull resulting in injuries to the brain. Again, you intended to kill the child. What I do not understand is why kill the child? Just what did he do to warrant your attack on him? It is otherwise very clear that, you were simply intent on killing the child as if raping and then killing the mother was not worse enough. 

In addition, I note that you are 29 years old. This means you were old enough to know that, what you set out to do was wrong but, you proceeded to execute them in the way you did any way. There is no evidence of you having any mental disability or any other defect that could account for your violent act. 

Furthermore, I note, your mother is alive. You have a brother and sister and that you are the second in the family of three children. When you went about committing the offence you acted as if you did not have a mother and or a brother or sister. If you had, and had any regard for your own family members and other relatives, you could not have committed these offences against two innocent and helpless people. Your actions suggest to me that you have no appreciation for life, let alone any human relations. 

In these circumstances, I have no difficulty agreeing with both counsels that, this is a worse case of wilful murder. It is worse than the case in The State v. Arua Maraga Hariki and Tony Imunu Api v. The State. In the first, the murders were committed in the context of a group drinking beer and death caused by strangling. In the latter, it was a case of one death.

If the present case is not worse for whatever reason, I cannot see when and what else can be. This was clearly a cold-blooded double murder of a mother and child after a rape of the mother, for no apparent good reason, legal or not. You simply showed no respect and reluctance in bring about the death of two completely innocent persons. 

Having found that, the killings in this case fall into the worse category of wilful murder, I now need to consider if there is any factor in mitigation that could prevent an imposition of the maximum prescribed sentence of death. 

The only factor in your favour is that you have no prior conviction. Therefore, this is your first ever offence. This is not sufficient, in my view, to outweigh the factors against you. This is particularly so, in view of the fact that you chose to deny committing the offences, thereby forcing the State quite unnecessarily to prove the charges against you. Then even after being found guilty, you did not, in your own words or through your lawyer utter a single word of regret or remorse. Instead, you remained unrepentant. No Court in my view should exercise any leniency where an offender remains unrepentant and utters no word of regret or remorse.

Now taking both the factors for and against you, I am of the view that the factors against you far outweigh the only factors in your favour. Both this and the Supreme Courts have in the past have given sufficient warnings that this Court will impose the death penalty in appropriate cases. I find this is one case in which, the death penalty is appropriate. I consider such a sentence is also appropriate, to send a strong message to persons who might be inclined to committing this kind of offence that the law is going to respond appropriately with the death penalty. This is to protect the sanctity of life and to meet the community call for tougher penalties.

In order to avoid proceeding on a false assumption that the Court knows what the community response is to the offences you committed, I asked with the agreement of the both parties for an input from the community through the Probation Services. The reasons for doing that are set out in the earlier part of this judgment, which I need not repeat. 

The Court now has the input it has requested. Before considering the report, I remind myself that it is within the discretion of the Court to either accept or reject whatever suggestions the community might put forward. The same principles governing the consideration or treatment of pre-sentencing report applies here without exception. 

I have accepted and acted on such reports were they were well-balanced. A well-balanced report is one, which has inputs from independent members of the community, the offender and his relatives and the victim and his or her relatives. Going by these guidelines, I note in your case that the community view on the penalty is well balanced. It has inputs from the Governor of the Province, who is also from your village, the deceased relatives, ward councillors, leaders and members of both your village and the Palai settlement were you were living at the time of the offence. This includes your own relatives. It also has inputs from church leaders. More than 60% of those contributing to the input, support the death penalty, about 30% have decided to leave it to the Court’s discretion and about 10 %, which is mainly the churches view are opposed to the death penalty arguing that only God gives and can take life.

Based on these inputs, we could safely conclude that the majority of the people in the community support the death penalty. This is in line with the view the Court has arrived at independently as per the foregoing. The opposing view is understandable. Justice Woods adequately covered that in The State –v- Yapes Paege & Relya Tanda in these terms:

"Applying what I see as the limited discretion allowed for in s. 19, there is no doubt that the Christian principles embodied in the Constitution would let me impose a term of years where there has been truth and contrition, such as in a plea of guilty. And as suggested in the Hane case referred to above, the Court could apply some discretion in a difficult domestic situation. But in the case before me, there has been no contrition, there has been no plea of guilty, there was no special domestic circumstances. Instead, it was a cold-blooded ambush attack, of which we have been having too many in this particular area of Papua New Guinea and for which it is highly probable that the Parliament was thinking when it amended the penalty in 1991."

His Honour then considered the possibility that the death penalty might conflict with principles of the sanctity of human life, as embodied in the Constitution and concluded that:

"Parliament has clearly provided for the sentence of death in the cultural and social circumstances of the country. And what can be so anathema about that. The circumstances of this case and of so many other cases the Court has seen over the years suggest a very casual attitude to life. There are many cases of the deliberate setting out in gangs to kill someone from an enemy line or to ambush someone.

Twenty years ago, judges were considering in wilful murder situations in tribal conflicts that there may be a partial cultural justification for this sort of killing, which reduces the defendant’s culpability or level of moral blame worthiness; for example, see R –v- Kilape [1973] No. 763. In another case, consideration was given to the defendant’s ignorance of the ways of government, their upbringing, and the strong tribal traditions which have until now controlled their life and which require these killings. Those were all circumstances, which were proper to take into account into determining the question of sentence.

However, how can that be seen to be relevant now in places like Laiagam, where there has been a history over the past 10 years of police action to try and curb tribal fights, where the road is busy with modern traffic and modern business, and where schools have been operating for years and people have been benefiting from the modern advantages synonymous with the modern wealth flowing down from Porgera and Mount Kare?

Parliament has clearly shown their concern at these continual tribal fight and ambush killings and ordered that the punishment is death. This Court cannot ignore that law. And considering the history of violence and similar killings in that area, I have some difficulty in finding the existence of appropriate circumstances, which allow the exception, provided for in s. 19."

I agree unreservedly with these observations and conclusion. In so doing, I note that, even the Bible teaches that the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life true Jesus Christ (Romans 6:23). It defines sin as a transgression (breaking) of the law. It is clear therefore, that, in order for a sinner to be spared the death penalty, he has to acknowledge that he has sinned then repent of his sins and seek forgives through Jesus Christ. So where one does not truly confess and repent of his sins, he is doomed to die. I cannot see the difference between God’s law and man’s law. They are rather the same. Indeed, when Jesus Christ was on this earth, he did allow for the full operation of man’s law rather than start a rebellion or a countering regime. The Criminal Code is man’s law governing our present existence for the peace and security of us all, until Heaven is here. 

Now returning to your case, it was a cold-blooded killing of a mother and child after the commission of another serious offence of rape against the mother, in full view of the child. They did nothing against you to receive such a punishment from you. You have not uttered even a single word of regret or remorse. There is therefore, nothing to prevent this Court from imposing the death penalty for both counts and I do. Accordingly, the Court orders that you be remanded in custody at the Vanimo Correction Services or such other places as the relevant authorities may consider appropriate until the death penalty is executed.
__________________________________________________________________
Lawyers for the State:			The Public Prosecutor
Lawyers for the Prisoner:		The Public Solicitor