This is a curious phenomenon, then. If someone said, "max. 40 years but you probably won't get that", my mind is probably going to be stuck on the number "40 y

This is a curious phenomenon, then. If someone said, "max. 40 years but you probably won't get that", my mind is probably going to be stuck on the number "40 years". That's probably sufficient to terrify somebody into doing really stupid things to avoid it, like we see here. 40 years in jail means that someone is such a tyrranical menace to society that they cannot be trusted to be around other people for the rest of their life.