Although a sentencing judge must consider rehabilitative potential, he need not give greater weight to rehabilitation than to the seriousness of the offense. 160 Ill. App. Rehabilitation does not outweigh other considerations that are persuasive factors warranting a severe sentence. Natural-life imprisonment is reserved for a class of murderer who demonstrates by his conduct a capacity for particularly brutal and heinous behavior indicative of wanton cruelty. It is a sentence reasonably designed to remedy the evil of such conduct.
Society deserves protection from it.
Defendant really did not show rehabilitative potential. In allocution, his regret rang hollow as he explained that his reading of the Koran permitted the administration of 180 lashes. Defendant blamed his wife Lisa and her failure as a Muslim as the reason for the beatings. He castigated Jeannie's parents for disowning her after she married a black man. He viewed the trial and his wife's death as a racial issue.