While the effect of a victim's death on the victim's family is not of itself relevant to the offender's culpability (per Previtera), the degree of harm the offender knows will be caused by the offence — including the deprivation of children of their mother — is highly relevant to culpability and may properly be treated as an aggravating feature in sentencing for murder. The volatility of a domestic relationship may in principle mitigate culpability even in a contract killing, but only where the offender's decision-making capacity was so adversely affected by the emotional relationship as to warrant mitigation.
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