In Brief
A nine-year-old girl was raped and murdered by a farm worker who dragged her to a sugarcane field, sexually assaulted her, and threw her into a well where she drowned. The trial court and High Court both imposed the death sentence. The Supreme Court held that while the crime was brutal and involved exceptional depravity, it was not pre-planned and the young perpetrator (aged 22) had capacity for rehabilitation. Applying proportionality principles and the 'rarest of rare' test, the Court found death penalty disproportionate and substituted it with 30 years imprisonment without remission.
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