In Brief
A 42-year-old mason was convicted of kidnapping, raping and murdering an 8-year-old girl in 2004. The trial court imposed death sentence on the same day as conviction with minimal hearing on sentencing. The Supreme Court, in a review petition hearing, commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment without remission. The Court held that while the crime was heinous, the conviction rested on circumstantial evidence and extrajudicial confession without forensic corroboration. The petitioner was denied effective legal representation and a meaningful hearing on sentence. The Court considered supervening factors including the petitioner's mental illness and prolonged solitary confinement, holding that the case did not qualify as 'rarest of rare' warranting capital punishment.
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