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It cannot be condoned or justified on any basis, and yet there remains a sizeable body of opinions which insists that murder by the state is the correct response to murder by a man.

The death penalty does not serve as a deterrent. It is the product of a fallible system from which there is no appeal. Its application is based on arbitrary factory of race and place and on gross variation in the treatment of accused murderers at every step in the criminal justice process.

The race and social class of offender and victim and the geographical location of the crime intrude arbitrarily into the process of determining the severing of the sentence. The review process mandated by the Supreme Court has failed to correct these grevious flaws in a system which capriciously decided who shall live and who shall die.

Race, class, time and place - these are the inevitable biases of America's criminal justice system. It is a system in which race and class already determine life span and mortality rates, income and educational levels.

It is not possible, then, that the legislators of Massachusetts^Louisiana however skilled and compassionate, or the Bay State's ^its voters, however devoted they may be to justice and fair play, can devise a death system that is not hepelessly unfair, unconstitutional, and discriminatory.

Those voices - and, there are many - who insist on retribution by the state, or ritual murder as a lesson to potential murders, now must shoulder the burden of proving that a bias-free system can be constructed.

It has not been in any state among the 50, and cannot be so long as race and class distinctions persist and are given official status and sanction.