If the death penalty is always wrong, let us have an argument about James Holmes, a man many Americans are aware of, informed about, and interested in. Let us hear why the inequities of the criminal-justice system require that his life be spared. Fight the death-penalty battle on this battlefield.

That won’t happen. It won’t happen in part because nobody on the Sunday talk shows wants to debate the death penalty when the case for it is strong. They like cases that “raise troubling questions about the legitimacy of the death penalty,” not cases that affirm the legitimacy of the death penalty.

But it also won’t happen because death-penalty opponents understand that when the murderer is unsympathetic, the wise course is to hold your tongue until the climate improves.