The demands for death

Even so, the death sentence lodged against Sampson yesterday in Boston represents one more scalp for the Bush administration and one large step backwards for the rule of law in Massachusetts. The life sentence given to Malvo yesterday is a welcome contrast.

Sampson, 44, pleaded guilty to murdering Philip McCloskey, 69, of Taunton, and Jonathan Rizzo, 19, of Kingston in July 2001. Each was bound and stabbed multiple times. These murders and a third in New Hampshire should have sent Sampson to state prison for life with no chance of parole, and that is what would almost certainly have happened if John Ashcroft's Justice Department had not stepped in.

While President Bush preaches federalism -- giving each state broad latitude in its own affairs -- he has allowed Ashcroft to target the 12 states that have no death penalty and override those local policies. In the case of Massachusetts, which has not executed a prisoner since 1947, the issue has been debated extensively and has regularly fallen short of legislative approval. The last vote in the House was 94-60 against reinstating capital punishment.

So federal prosecutors elbowed their way in. Sampson, instead of being charged with murder in a state court, was transferred to federal court, which has jurisdiction because the murders were associated with carjackings -- a crime added to the federal death penalty statute nine years ago. They did this in spite of the fact that Sampson tried to turn himself in the day before the first murder -- the call was apparently fumbled by Ashcroft's subordinates in the Boston FBI office.

The strongest argument against the death penalty is that it will inevitably lead to the execution of innocent persons, a fact acknowledged by US District Judge Mark Wolf in allowing Sampson's to go forward as a capital case. There have been instances of false confessions from people who wanted to be punished. But even in a case such as Sampson's, where guilt is certain, executions only pull society down with the criminal.

In his three-hour charge to the jury last Friday, Wolf said the weighing of aggravating and mitigating factors "is not a matter of arithmetic." He instructed the jurors to decide "based on reason rather than emotion."

Sampson committed acts of almost unimaginable brutality. But he turned himself in afterwards and led police to evidence that was later used against him, all after trying to surrender himself. He deserves to be locked away forever. To snuff out his life, as he did to his three victims, is a kind of arithmetic that gains society nothing.