McVeigh has said that he would rather be executed than spend his life in prison. He'll get a big finish, with the world watching him, and on the front of all the crap papers. A sort of reward, and easy way out. And you can guarantee that the execuition, especfially if it ends up as a public public execution, will make it far more likely that some other McVeigh will be motivated into doing something similar.

Executions do not deter this kind of terrorism. They encourage it. They turn coldblooded killers into heroes. Hell, we're still singing about them hundreds of years later, aren't we?

No doubt there'll be a Ballad of Timothy McVeigh just like there was a Ballad of Lieutenant Calley (and he wasn't even held in prison for more than a few weeks - McVeigh killed the wrong sort of children I suppose...)