I don't presume to know what those considerations are. But they surely cannot be the other reason he gives: Capital punishment doesn't deter.

The assertion violates common sense. We can never measure how many people do not do something. But more telling is the late Ernest van den Haag's argument: Imagine a state that passed a law that all murders committed on Monday, Wednesday or Friday would be punished by imprisonment and all murders committed on the other days of the week would be punished by execution. Would murders take place on each day of the week at the same rate as they did prior to the law? I doubt it.

And, in any event, the primary purpose of capital punishment is not deterrence.

It is to prevent the greatest conceivable injustice -- allowing a person who deliberately takes an innocent person's life to keep his own.

And it tells society that murder is evil in ways that no amount of imprisonment can ever convey. Every member of society, from young child to old adult -- perceives that killing murderers means society hates evil in a way that it clearly does not if it only imprisons them.

That America still executes murderers renders it unique among the world's major democracies. It does so because it hates evil more than those other democracies -- whether the evil be at home or abroad.

I am certain that George Will knows this and will come to see how our not allowing all murderers to live is an essential part of that uniqueness.