Message #18743

[disallusioned]

I too believe that she should be punished, yet given credit for her good behavior of the past 30 years.  If she had been in jail all this time she would have been released long before now due to good behavior.  But since she hasn't paid any price (other than probably some worries and stress over at least the first few years worrying about getting caught) then she needs to pay something, even if it's only a couple of years and then freedom once more.  I can also see that from the stateof overcrowding in our prisons, this would be looked on as a more logical step than inprisoning her for another 20+ years.
The way I see it is if you kill people, you need to do some hard time even if you're not caught for 20+ years.  According to the information provided in here, this was stopped prior to the act.  Therefore, even if she had been arrested immediately she wouldn't have had to do as much time as a murderer would have and thus can be given less time now.  I say weigh the price she would have paid then (as far as years to serve) against her clean record now, and give an appropriate balance between the two.  This goes for anyone.  If you were a war criminal and are caught 60 years later, with a clean record (ie, not killed anyone else) then what would the sentence have been, weighed against those 60years of good behavior, and find a sentence that suits.  There are a lot of factors in any case, at any point, whether they are caught immediately, 5 months later, or 5+ years later, and that all needs to be brought into the equation.  Not an easy job at all.