Why didn't Eric Rudolph get the death penalty?

[ecstatic]

I'm not pro-death penalty, but it seems that people get put to death every day for less... Even when the evidence is shaky. Here is a guy who confessed to killing more than one person and all he gets is life (which I think is worse, of course), but thinking in Repug mode, he is getting off "easy." Is this a double standard for "Christian terrorists?"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eric_rudolph

[NC_Nurse]

1. Plea deal

He got life for confessing so they didn't have to take it to trial.

[Deep13]

2. I don't know what the jurors were thinking ...

... but I do not that generally jurors have been increasingly retiscent to impose capital sentences. Also, they may have thought of him as a little nuts and decided that mitigated his crime.

[calico1]

7. He pleaded guilty. There was no trial. n/t

[Deep13]

11. That answers that question.

[blondeatlast]

10. What jurors? He PLED. nt

[auburngrad82]

3. He plead guilty in exchange for taking death penalty off the table.

He took life without parole instead. He knew if it went to trial he'd get the death penalty. It appears his life is too precious to give up. The people who died in his bombings, though, apparently weren't worth as much as he was.

[democracyindanger]

4. Plea bargain

[jobycom]

5. C'mon, he's just a white Christian guy who made an honest mistake

Not like he was some black guy holding up a liquor store or nothing. He did it all for good, Christian reasons, you know, but he just got carried away. If it weren't for the durned liberals, we'd have just let him go.

[noonwitch]

6. He pled guilty to avoid the death penalty

Thus saving the taxpayers the cost of trials.

I'm against the death penalty, too. I do wish they would stop calling Rudolph a bomber and refer to him as a terrorist. Even better would be fundamentalist christian terrorist, just to make things clear.

[blondeatlast]

8. Again, as several others have pointed out--plea bargain. nt

[BiggJawn]

9. Plea Bargain.

Prosecuter gets to chalk up a "Win" for re-election, and Rudolph gets to avoid the Big Trip.

Funny. I figure that being a born-again-ate-up Dominionist Insurgent, he'd have a yard-on a hard long to get to go meet Jeebus early...

[RaleighNCDUer]

12. Because he's a proud member of the

culture of life.

[dsc]

13. an understandable plea bargain

This case is now a little over 10 years old. Memories fade. Injuries fade. While this case may seem like a slam dunk it would have been expensive, time consuming, and if even one juror decided that the evidence was strong enough, a possible disaster.