Death for the Atlanta Killer?

My friend Esther, who runs a great blog at Outside the Blogway, left a comment that Brian Nichols, who murdered a judge and others in Atlanta, should get the death penalty. She has stated before, here and elsewhere, that those guilty of particularly heinous crimes, to include serial killers, should be put to death.

I'm against the death penalty, as I explained in another post. That's still my position, even in the context of the vile crimes of Brian Nichols. According to the press, there's apparently no question that he did, in fact, commit the murders he'll be charged with. He would also be eligible for the death penalty if convicted, and there seems to be little doubt that prosecutors will ask for it.

My principal objections to the death penalty center on these issues:

It's applied unevenly and sometimes inaccurately. Your chances of getting the death penalty for a capital crime depend too much on having enough money to buy good lawyers. O.J. Simpson is the perfect example. It also matters where you commit the offense and who you are. The system also makes mistakes, as we've learned in case after case where DNA proved that people on death row were innocent.

I don't believe we should empower the state to kill us under any circumstances. In political theory, we enter into a social contract among ourselves to form a government. The purpose of that government is to protect us from internal and external threats and to govern our interactions so as to establish a civil society in which all can prosper. How does executing citizens square with that concept?

In this context, it doesn't matter that Brian Nichols murdered several people in cold blood. Personally, it wouldn't have bothered me at all if he had been killed resisting arrest. In fact, I think it speaks volumes about our society that he survived the arrest after having killed a judge, a court reporter, a sheriff's deputy, and probably a federal customs officer. In most countries he would have died immediately at the hands of law enforcement officers.

However, public policy can't be made on the basis of individual examples of extreme cases. It also can't be made as an emotional response to personal circumstances. A good example is when Dan Quayle, as a candidate for Vice President, was asked by a reporter if he would still be against abortion if his daughter became pregnant as a result of rape. Quayle, never the brightest bulb on the tree, tried to struggle through an answer to the question. He should have responded that in addition to being stupid and insulting, the question missed the point, which is that public policy must transcend the visceral feelings of an aggreived individual.

I'll close with what I said in the earlier post on the death penalty:

Finally, there's the morality of it. From my first days in basic training in the Army, I was taught that soldiers don't kill prisoners who do not present a threat. If that's morally correct, and it is, then how can we permit the state to kill its prisoners? The question is not whether captured enemy soldiers should have a right to live, while convicted murderers should not. The question is whether the state, acting through its soldiers or its courts, should have the authority to kill people in its custody.