The federal government had not executed a prisoner in 37 years when on March 15, 1963, it executed Victor Feguer for murder and kidnapping.

Timothy McVeigh was scheduled to die Wednesday, and I’ll make the argument that Feguer should remain the last person the government has killed.

The latest developments that resulted in the momentary delay of McVeigh’s execution allow us to step back and evaluate the death penalty practice and its value in our society.

While he has admitted to committing the worst, most heinous act of terrorism in the history of the United States, the question of whether capital punishment is morally and rationally acceptable is still up in the air in his case.

Michigan may not have had a tragedy equivalent to the Oklahoma City bombing, but that hasn’t stopped the pressure to bring the death penalty to our state.

In 1999, I was covering the Capitol for The State News when state Sen. David Jaye, R-Washington Township, and my hometown senator, Willis Bullard, R-Highland, sponsored separate but similar resolutions calling for a November 2000 voter referendum that would have allowed voters to decide if Michigan should have the death penalty as an option for first-degree murder convictions.

To give credit where credit is due, state Rep. Larry Julian, R-Lennon, jumped on the bandwagon and introduced a measure of his own in the House.

Neither measure passed, obviously.

Michigan first outlawed capital punishment in an 1846 statute. In 1963, the ban was made a part of the state constitution.

So where am I going with all this? The reason those bills died in the Michigan Legislature is simple. The lawmakers came to a very vital realization: They don’t like to see the government in the killing business.

The death penalty costs too much money in the appeals process, fails to deter crime and kills innocent people.

While you will undoubtedly find people who argue the contrary, it is still cheaper to keep a person in prison for life than execute them. The appeals process is long and expensive to taxpayers. It is, when you check the facts, much cheaper to toss them in the slammer for the rest of their lives.

The death penalty is also, in my opinion, racially biased. Looking at the numbers, especially with the amount of people put to death in states like Texas, the number of blacks and Hispanics executed far exceeds the numbers of whites.

Whites do not commit less heinous or fewer “execution-worthy” crimes. Convicted murderer and federal death row inmate Juan Raul Garza was scheduled to die in December, but former President Clinton put off that execution for six months to allow for a Justice Department study of racial disparities in death sentences.

Pro-capital punishment people also believe the death penalty serves as a deterrent. There is no evidence to justify this statement. If someone were planning on committing a crime like murder, he wouldn’t say “if I get caught, I would be killed.” He would try not to get caught