Six years ago Timothy McVeigh committed the worst act of terrorism in American history. He detonated a bomb outside a federal building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people, including 15 small children. He is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on May 16 at the federal penitentiary at Terre Haute, Indiana. McVeigh admits responsibility for this terrible crime and looks forward to his death—perhaps the one thing he has in common with millions of people throughout the country.

For those in favor of capital punishment, the McVeigh case provides exhibit A. His crime was horrific; his guilt is beyond question. He shows no remorse for what he has done, nor any concern for the incalculable suffering he has caused. He is cool, calculating, and apparently heartless. For the ultimate criminal, how could justice be served by anything less than the ultimate penalty? If we’re going to execute anyone in this country this year, McVeigh is surely candidate number one. Who in his right mind could oppose the execution?

No one in public life today, that’s for sure. I don’t remember if capital punishment was ever a presidential campaign issue, but it certainly wasn’t this past year. The views of George W. Bush are well known. His home state has conducted more executions than any other since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment several years ago. Both members of the national Democratic ticket said they support the death penalty, too. Even as liberal a senator as Diane Feinstein shares their sentiments. If a former mayor of San Francisco supports capital punishment, it is hard to imagine anyone opposing it.

Well, I for one think McVeigh’s execution is the wrong thing to do. Killing Timothy McVeigh is a mistake. As a Christian, I think there are important religious factors that bear on the issue. (The gospel teaches that no one stands outside the reach of God’s great love, not even murderers.) But I also think it’s a mistake for other reasons, and those are the ones I’ll mention here.

First of all, capital punishment does not achieve justice. Shouldn’t killers be killed? Isn’t equitable retribution the most basic form of punishment? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life—that seems to make sense, and it has a powerful authority to back it up. But the fact is, we don’t follow this precept literally, partly because we can’t. In some cases capital punishment doesn’t constitute equitable retribution. Killing Timothy McVeigh won’t balance the scales or even the score. One hundred sixty-eight people died in Oklahoma City. We can’t kill Timothy McVeigh 168 times. In fact, there is nothing we can do to him that would somehow cancel out the terrible losses he inflicted and continues to inflict on his victims and their survivors. So, capital punishment doesn’t achieve its basic objective. It doesn’t repay the perpetrator what the victims suffer.

However, even if killing McVeigh won’t balance the books, he still deserves to die, doesn’t he? Shouldn’t a killer be killed? Not necessarily. As a general rule, our society does not seek pure retribution in the way it punishes people. We don’t torture child abusers, we don’t rape rapists. Remember the poor girl whose arms were chopped off a few years ago? We didn’t maim her assailant. As a matter of principle we don’t treat violent criminals the way they treat their victims, so why should we make an exception for killers?

Another reason to oppose capital punishment is the fact that we do not apply the death penalty equitably. In our society, poor people, especially if they belong to certain minorities, are far more likely to be sentenced to death than those who are well-off. If a defendant can afford a really good defense, prosecutors don’t even seek the death penalty. Whether or not you believe that O. J. killed Ron and Nicole, it is noteworthy that his prosecutors did not seek the death penalty, even though his alleged crime was shocking in its brutality. Why not? Because the accused was rich and famous. Does anyone doubt that a homeless person on trial for the same deed would be facing execution?

Even more sobering, our criminal justice system often makes mistakes. DNA tests have conclusively shown that a number of people have been sent to prison for crimes they never committed, including several on death row. In fact, the governor of Illinois was so disturbed by the unreliability of the justice system in his state that he declared a moratorium on all executions. It is possible to provide some sort of compensation to people who are released from prison for crimes they didn’t commit, but nothing can be done for an innocent person who has been executed. To protect people from the greatest injustice a society can inflict—using the instruments of justice to kill an innocent person—we should eliminate capital punishment.

Another reason to change our policy is an unintended consequence that it produces. A death sentence has a way of turning miscreants into martyrs. Murderers often become more famous than the people they killed. To many Europeans, I discovered during a visit to Paris last year, one of the most famous people in the United States is Mumia Abu Jamal, a man condemned to death in Pennsylvania for killing a police officer. Nobody thinks much about the man he killed, or his lonely widow, who’s trying to remind people of the true victim in this case. All they talk about is the horrible prospect of killing this articulate, energetic convict, who has transformed himself during his incarceration. By condemning such people to die, we hand them a megaphone to advertise themselves. Which brings us back to Timothy McVeigh.

According to his biographers, Timothy McVeigh not only planned the Oklahoma City bombing, he also planned to be arrested, tried, convicted, and executed. It was all part of the dramatic statement he wants to make to America. He envisioned becoming a martyr for the misguided cause he committed himself to. People who are willing to die for what they believe often want to convince people that they believe in something worth dying for. Will McVeigh’s execution have that effect? I certainly hope not. But why should we give him the opportunity to make the effort?

Besides, when we think about what happened in Oklahoma City six years ago, our thoughts ought to reach out to the victims and their survivors. Timothy McVeigh doesn’t deserve the sort of attention he craves, and we shouldn’t give it to him. However, that is exactly what his execution will do.

Finally, I oppose killing Timothy McVeigh because I don’t want to imitate Timothy McVeigh. I don’t want to resort to death as a means of achieving any of society’s goals. I doubt that killing people ever makes anything better. When we meet violence with violence, we participate in the dreadful cycle of revenge that accounts for so much of the world’s woes.

This brings me to my primary concern in this whole sorry business. It’s not the one facing execution, but the ones doing the executing—you and I, and the society we are part of. Whether or not Timothy McVeigh should be killed is one issue; whether we should do it is another. Killing him is a mistake, I’m convinced, not because he deserves anything less, but because we deserve something more.

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