But the family's rage is not the measure of punishment. What is the standard for the crime, objectively? What is the standard for the inmate's prior offenses and potential for future offenses and for the inmate's behavior while incarcerated. Equal justice under the law - for victim and offender. That's if you want a rational and fair society. otherwise, by all means have the victim's families throw all offenders to the dogs or the lynch mobs - it doesn't much matter at that point.

That's how you adjudicate such matter rationally in a just society. If it was purely up to the family's feelings about it, we shouldn't have a justice system or sentencing guidelines or inmate behavior records or any system at all.

So your question is largely beside the point. But we could easily turn it around, and ask what a parent of a person murdered in pretty much any other second degree murder committed at the time thinks about John Lennon's killer being given more punishment than their own child's killer, since their own child's killer has likely been free for the better part of a decade.

Why is John Lennon more important than their own child?