My wife and I have been having an ongoing discussion about this issue over the past few days, its rather fascinating actually.
On one side (mine) is the thinking that the judge did the right thing.
The other side is that a life sentence is just that and that he should've been left in jail to die in jail.
A couple of points to clear a few things up:
1) This is not really a precedent setting decision, this has been done in the Scottish courts for sometime. In fact there is an official terminally ill apeals roll that he was a part of. This just happens to be the highest profile of such cases. Others convicted of less international crimes (maybe not as heinous) have been given reprieve through this system when terminally ill.
2) The man is clearly ill. The medical records have been released, and the illness was confirmed by mutliple doctors, both independant and state ones. Also if there is any doubt look to his debarkation, he needed two guys to help him walk down the stairs and was very clearly in a lot of pain.
I feel the right thing was done by setting him free. See in my mind society should give out punishments for the sake of justice, but definately not for the sake of vengence. I can clearly see the line of vengence forming in the arguments of why he should not have been set free (arguments like he didn't give that chance to his 270 victims). I feel that the terminal illness is justice coming his way and is in fact much worse than jail - he's going to go through several months of intense pain before passing away. In my opinion to have to go through prostate cancer is a much more harsh punishment than anything else we can dish out. I feel that whether or not we kept him in jail he is being served justice, and as such there was no merit for continueing to hold him as it will not serve the cause of justice to continue to do so.
Compounded with the terminal illness is the shadow of doubt on the validity of his conviction. I'm certain that played a part in the decision to let him go, and as it should be.
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