A sentencing judge must expressly identify and give adequate weight to the objective features of the offence, including premeditation, planning, sustained violence, and permanency of injury, and failure to state reasons on objective criminality is itself an error of law warranting intervention. Where a young offender commits a serious crime of violence that is premeditated and executed in an adult manner, the special attention normally given to rehabilitation must give way to punishment and deterrence. The permanency of a victim's loss (including the death of a foetus regarded as part of the mother) goes to the objective criminality of the offence and may properly be taken into account from a victim impact statement.
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