Concept for a short story:

The future: All those on death row are released to serve life terms. But the government has realized that, although killing its own citizens represents the ultimate expression of state power and serves as a useful caution to its citizens, it is no longer necessary to indiscriminately kill dozens or hundreds of people each year: a single death will do.

The government has also realized that the death of a common rapist or murderer, no matter how deserved, does not fully engage the passions of the public. The scum, they will say, have their reward; and they will shrug their shoulders.

No, there is a difference between the merely brutal and the truly evil, they say. And so the one man or woman to be killed each year, with full offices and ceremonies of state, must be evil. Only in this way can the public be fully engaged, complicit, equally guilty with the state in the commission of this killing.  So the quest began for the single most evil man in the country. Not an easy quest, because members of the government were exempted by statute, as were the leading professional sports figures, college deans, and of course lawyers. Other protected classes were added, the deserving poor, the undeserving poor, the huddled masses, the rich, the very rich, and … and …..

And that is why Melvin H. Robertson, an insurance adjuster from Campbellsburg, Indiana, the only one in America not exempted from capital punishment, found himself one day on death row.

<END>