Public outrage can fire up some impressive wattage, and it can, and has burned many a criminal who thought he/she was sailing into the lagoon, and has set them off into the open ocean.
Jamie Ramage , a case in point. Jamie, a smart and savvy bloke from North Balwyn, got utterly infuriated with his wife, Julie , when she reasonably pointed out that she wanted out of the marriage, because he was a bully and a control freak, she couldn't take it anymore.
So she left, and almost instantly met another chap with whom she fell hard for, and he fell for her, and this was the limit for Jamie. He arranged for her to come back to the family home and check out the renovations he had done to the kitchen for her.
Which, as you can understand, she wasn't that interested in, so he strangled her, put her body in the boot of his car, drove it up to where she used to go riding her horse, up in the Dandenongs, buried her in a shallow grave, and then rang his lawyer.
Meanwhile his daughter , 15, frantic that she couldnt find Mum was directed by Jamie to go home and remain there until he was able to get someone to help.
His lawyer thought up the idea that he could claim that Julie had taunted him about the size of his sexual organs, and their respective capacity for any sort of operative value. On this basis, he claimed 'Provocation' . .. the underlying theme being that a man is entitled to lose his mind if a woman criticizes his equipment.
You think I'm kidding, dont you... But I am not, and this was not that long ago. 2004, this century.
So outraged was the Vic public that such a law was even on the books, that a Parliamentary edict changed it, and it's no longer in law, but it got Jamie off, alright.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/loophole-that-helped-evil-bully-20110708-1h6ns.html