Where co-offenders are engaged in a joint criminal enterprise to kill and it is not possible to identify which offender inflicted the fatal wound, the wound is treated as the product of the joint enterprise and it is inappropriate for an appellate court to attribute it to one offender. A revenge motive, even where the victim's prior conduct was abhorrent, does not mitigate the objective gravity of murder, though it may be relevant to subjective circumstances. Where the same sentencing judge deals with co-offenders and gives detailed reasons addressing differing criminality, an appellate court will be cautious before finding a justifiable sense of grievance from different sentencing outcomes.
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