The function of a just government is to protect and enhance the value of life. The government violates this function when it terminates the lives of any of its citizens. Further, there is no indication of social benefit from capital punishment, either through the exercise of retribution or through enhanced social protection by the deterrence of potential capital offenders. Also, the history of the application of capital punishment shows an unwillingness and probably an inability to dispense justice equally, as capital punishment has been imposed mostly on persons from a subclass defined by extralegal characteristics, race and social class being the most prominent. Execution is the endpoint of a process necessarily pervaded by discretionary decisionmaking, constantly adapting itself to the popular will. The law should protect citizens from an insensitive, biased, and vengeful popular will and limit criminal justice institutions in the power to render life and death decisions. This can be done by abolishing the death penalty. Six references are listed.