The trial judge chose the death penalty over an insufficient life sentence because judicial precedents prohibited them from imposing a fixed-term, non-remittable sentence, highlighting a conflict between the “rarest of rare” doctrine and legal limitations in the Sattankulam custodial killings. Opponents contend that this result demonstrates a “broken ladder” in Indian law, whereby the Supreme Court’s Sriharan ruling compels trial courts to impose either death or “14-year jail” as a punishment by denying the “middle ground” of lengthy incarceration, a tool that is now defaulted at the appeal level.
