The parity principle requires a comparative analysis of the culpability and circumstances of co-offenders, but where that analysis reveals the co-offenders are so disparate in culpability, circumstance and position that radically different dispositions are objectively justified and rationally explained, there is no violation of parity. Voluntary withdrawal from a conspiracy, an early guilty plea, and extraordinary cooperation with authorities can render co-offenders so dissimilar that a wholly suspended sentence for one and a 13-year sentence for another does not engender a justifiable sense of grievance. The unresolved question of whether parity requires compounding the error of an inadequate co-offender sentence was identified but not resolved.
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