A premeditated, cold-blooded double murder of family members motivated by feelings of insult and disrespect, involving lying in wait and shooting defenceless victims at close range, falls towards the very top end of the range of seriousness for murder and warrants life imprisonment notwithstanding an early guilty plea with significant utilitarian value, absence of prior convictions, and the more onerous nature of imprisonment due to brain injury. The utilitarian value of a guilty plea during the COVID-19 pandemic, while entitled to appropriate weight, does not preclude life imprisonment where the degree of criminality so outweighs mitigating circumstances.
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