To the editor:

A good friend recently questioned me (because I am a lawyer) why a death penalty defense should cost $1 million. I did my best to explain that when society decides whether to kill a fellow citizen, we want to do our best to make sure that no mistakes are made. Leaving aside the question of the logic of killing someone in order to demonstrate to the rest of us the sanctity of human life, once we set out to do it, we had best be right.

The larger question is, who should we punish when the judge, the jury, and the prosecutor make a mistake? We know now that there have been scores, if not hundreds, of people incarcerated for decades, placed on death row and probably executed for crimes that newly developed DNA testing could prove they did not commit. We cannot give that life back, so who do we punish? Perhaps we should kill the prosecutor who brought the charges. Perhaps the entire jury should kill the prosecutor who brought the charges. Perhaps the entire jury should be put to death since they voted (wrongly) for the death penalty. Perhaps the judge who imposed the sentence or the legislators who voted for the law should be executed.

Once we decide to punish killing with killing, who do we kill when the killing is in error?

Patrick Nichols,

Lawrence