The Los Angeles Daily News has this story by Tony Castro on the penalty verdict in the case of Manuel Alvarez. The jury decided on life without parole for a man who killed 11 people by parking on the train tracks. He says he did not intend to kill anyone but himself. Near the end of this story is this passage:

University of Colorado at Boulder sociologist Michael Radelet, one of the nation's leading criminologists and most-cited experts on the death penalty, said that often the extent or even the depravity of the crimes alone does not guarantee death sentencing convictions.

"This case reminds me a great deal of the Jeffrey Daumer case in Wisconsin where so much emotional testimony was allowed during the sentencing phase but Daumer wound up (with) 15 life terms in prison and eventually died there," said Radelet.

If this quote is accurate and in context (neither of which is certain), this is a truly astonishing thing to say. Dahmer did not get the death penalty for the simple and obvious reason that Wisconsin doesn't have the death penalty, not because of any discretionary decision that it was not warranted in his case. (The death penalty was subsequently administered by another inmate, who was criminally judgment-proof in the State of Wisconsin, as he was already sentenced to life.) The two cases are not remotely alike. Dahmer's crime was a long spree of premeditated killing and cannibalism, and the life sentence was a travesty. The Alvarez case was a single act without intent to kill (the jury found), and many people who believe in capital punishment generally would exclude all non-intent cases.