I also sympathize with the objective that Mr. Murphy is trying to accomplish here.
Mr. Rathgeber feels the same way, but he feels that every one of these multiple murder scenarios is the same. And while I can only agree with him totally that the circumstances he has mentioned are all the most heinous, it's not clear to me that every multiple murder scenario is going to be that way. I think about a recent case--without mentioning any one, so again, generically--where a mother kills her two children. Now, you could say to me that this section provides for this because there is discretion on a judge imposing a second consecutive 25-year period of ineligibility. You hate comparing these kinds of cases because they're all so very sad.
I see the possibility of an unintended impact here that we haven't thought of. We haven't gone through all of the possibilities. So a judge at some point would be crying out for some kind of a way. He has looked at the circumstances and would say that two 25-year consecutive periods were not a very good fit. Then the judge is either going to exercise his discretion to not impose the second one, which might be okay. The alternative is that he or she is looking for some kind of a compromise between the 25 and the 50 just because he or she thinks it's the just thing to do. You might have an entire community--and you think of a small community somewhere--that will say, yes, the judge is right on this one. But the judge would be stuck.
So Mr. Murphy's objective is a good one. The technical drafting issues confront us, and I'm sorry that it isn't easier to accomplish.
I'll stop there.