It is lawful and appropriate to seek the death penalty for James Holmes. Failure to pursue his execution could effectively end capital punishment in Colorado.

Death penalty opponents such as The Denver Post and Colorado’s Public Defenders understand their challenge and opportunity. They will decry and fight any effort to execute Holmes. If successful, they will next argue that Holmes’ exemption means that no slayer of fewer people should suffer the ultimate punishment.

Nathan Dunlap is up next in the segregated, small and slow-moving line that is Colorado’s death row. In 1993, Dunlap shot five employees of an Aurora Chuck E. Cheese restaurant. Four died.

Dunlap is black. So are the only two other condemned Colorado prisoners. If Holmes, a white man, does not join them, the objection will be obvious. Why does this Caucasian perpetrator of one of America’s worst mass shootings escape execution but others do not?

Holmes killed 12 people and injured 58 others. If Holmes’ gun had not jammed, and had entry been made to his trip-wired apartment, scores more could have been killed. The deliberation was extensive. The indifference to the value of human life was extreme.

Insanity will be argued. Don’t expect the prosecution to agree. If a jury finds Holmes not guilty by reason of insanity, there will be no punishment. But if Holmes is guilty as charged, how can capital punishment not be pursued?

As Holmes planned his atrocity, he considered the consequences. Holmes neither wanted nor expected to die. Holmes contemplated incarceration. On dating websites, Holmes reportedly wrote, “Will you visit me in prison?”

Life imprisonment without parole is the mandatory minimum sentence for a single first-degree murder. Holmes, and other mass murderers, may well perceive that every killing after the first can be committed with impunity. Such perceptions are not good for Colorado.

Reasonable people can differ about capital punishment. Democrats generally prefer life imprisonment without parole. The Justice Department recently let Jared Loughner avoid federal execution. It sought a civilian trial in New York City for 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Why that liberal venue if execution is the goal?

Democrats came up one vote short of abolishing Colorado’s death penalty in 2009 even though capital punishment is careful, rare and slow in this state. Only one execution has occurred in Colorado since the mid-1960s.

Death penalty opponents claim capital punishment is archaic and barbaric. So is locking someone in a cage. Vengeance and retribution are bad, they assert. Try having a civilized society without them. Inadequately punish violent criminals and victims may take the law into their own hands.

Mass murderers should face capital punishment. When Jack Graham blew up a United Airlines passenger jet and killed 44 in 1955, he was tried in Denver in 1956, and executed by the state in 1957. In 1997, a Denver federal jury appropriately sentenced Timothy McVeigh to death.

Capital litigation in Colorado can now last two decades. That is ridiculous. Death penalty opponents support every delay tactic, numerous rounds of slow appeals, and then they argue that capital punishment takes too long.

No one wants to execute an innocent person. Scientific advances such as DNA, unreliable eyewitnesses, and disparate racial application are among the better arguments against capital punishment. None of these concerns apply to Holmes.

The death penalty decision initially belongs to incumbent 18th Judicial District Attorney Carol Chambers, a Republican, who has a history of pursuing capital punishment. She is term- limited, so either Republican George Brauchler or Democrat Ethan Feldman will ultimately have that prosecutorial power.

If this is not a death penalty case, what is? Failure to seek or obtain capital punishment for Holmes could kill Colorado’s death penalty. Most people believe that Colorado should have capital punishment, especially to address premeditated acts of mass murder.

Craig Silverman is a founding partner at Silverman and Olivas, PC. He worked previously as chief district attorney in Denver.