If anyone deserved the death penalty, it was Michael Roman. He killed five members of a Lake Worth family two years ago. The murders were calculated. One victim was a pregnant woman. Even after all this time, he shows no remorse.

But the state will not try to execute Michael Roman, a fact that can unite opponents and supporters of the death penalty in the belief that Florida should abolish it.

Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer, who supports the death penalty, says that he and the lead prosecutor agreed to let Roman plead guilty for several reasons. It is rare that a defendant takes a plea to first-degree murder, one of four crimes in Florida that are punishable by death. Under the deal, Roman will get life without parole, which Mr. Krischer says will bring "finality." The state saves not only the cost of a trial; the victims' relatives — who supported the deal — do not have to relive the horror. The state will save more by avoiding years of appeals; all credible research shows that incarceration is far cheaper than litigation. Most important, Roman never again will threaten the public.

It is a thoroughly practical solution to a very emotional case. Having accepted the deal, however, doesn't the state forfeit the moral standing to execute anyone else?

For capital cases, Florida has a set of "aggravating circumstances" — criminal record, heinousness — that argue in favor of a death sentence, and a set of "mitigating circumstances" — mental faculties, age — that argue against it. It's hard to imagine a more heinous act than Roman's. He thought that two of the victims had molested his daughters. When he confronted the family members, he said, they laughed. So he shot four and stabbed another. Even death-penalty opponents might make an exception.

But that, of course, is the problem. It is impossible to craft a law that reserves capital punishment for only a certain class of criminal. Because Florida and the 37 other states where the death penalty is legal won't accept that fact, governments waste untold millions each year on post-conviction appeals over whether the facts of the case support the ultimate punishment.

Some of those appeals, however, focus on guilt or innocence. Florida leads the nation in the number of releases from Death Row. As news of these cases has spread, juries have become more wary of the death penalty and more receptive to giving life without parole when it means that, as it does in Florida. Since the state made that change, courts have been handing down fewer death sentences. According to the Department of Justice, the number of death sentences last year was the smallest since 1973, the year after the Supreme Court struck down state capital punishment laws.

There is no doubt about Michael Roman's guilt. Mr. Krischer says this case is "unique." But when a pro-death penalty prosecutor who says he doesn't use the punishment as a bargaining chip is satisfied to sign off on a deal that spares the life of a mass murderer, those "unique" circumstances indict every death case in Florida.