In Brief
A 25-year-old man was convicted of kidnapping, rape, unnatural intercourse with, and murdering a 2-year-old child in a brutal crime. The conviction rested on eyewitness accounts, DNA evidence, and circumstantial evidence. While affirming his guilt, the Supreme Court commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment, holding that mitigating factors—including his youth, lack of prior criminal history, intoxication at the time, low socio-economic status, and conviction based substantially on circumstantial evidence—outweighed aggravating factors. The Court emphasized that the prosecution failed to prove he was beyond reformation, and absent such proof, capital punishment should not be imposed.
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