SUSAN Smith may be the most reviled mother in the United States. But if I were on that jury that must determine her fate, I know what I would say: She does not deserve to die.

Capital punishment is a barbaric vestige of an earlier time. We profess to be a civilized society that values life. But even those who disagree whether in Union, S.C., or New York City must see how pointless capital punishment is in a situation like Smith's. Her case is further evidence of how arbitrary prosecutors can be in seeking it and juries in imposing it.

Smith may escape the death penalty because of sympathy, or she might get it because of a thirst for revenge. And if the jury had accepted the judge's last-minute invitation to find her guilty of involuntary manslaughter instead of murder, she would not now be wondering whether the jury her former neighbors will recommend that she spend many years behind bars or be executed as soon as possible.

According to a CNN/USA Today poll, 68% of the public wants Smith executed for strapping 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alex into their car seats last October and sliding her Mazda into a lake. That's about 8 miles from the courthouse where she now listens to witness after witness unveil secrets that William Faulkner would have had a hard time portraying with credibility and that Union, S.C., would prefer not to know.

Many people in her hometown seem to want to be rid of her so they can go back to deluding themselves that Union is a model of small-town virtue where everyone gets along just fine, thank you. Despite their homespun denial, Union is more Peyton Place than Mayberry R.F.D.

In the weeks preceding the murders, Smith allegedly had sex with her estranged husband, her boyfriend, her boyfriend's father and her own stepfather.

The stepfather, a successful businessman and leader of the local Republican Party and Christian Coalition, has acknowledged a sexual relationship with Smith that goes back to when she was 15. He has recently said that he is "responsible for and ashamed of what happened" and is "finally getting the professional help that I need."

With hypocrisy, broken marriages, suicides and attempted suicides abounding in Smith's circle of family and friends, it's obvious what a defense lawyer meant when she told the jury last week: "This case goes way back, well before the night of Oct. 25, 1994."

Does a sordid history of mental illness and sexual abuse absolve Smith? No. But it's too easy to denounce her as a modern-day Medea, send her to the electric chair and be done with her. Smith is mentally ill. She needs psychiatric treatment, not a charge of electricity.

Townspeople say they feel betrayed because for nine days Smith lied to them and to the nation, claiming that her car had been stolen and her boys abducted by a black man. The people of Union, blacks as well as whites, believed her. They searched. They wept. They prayed. And then she confessed. But betrayal her abuse of her neighbors' trust and so many people's abuse of Smith's trust over the years is not a capital offense.

Emotional judgment

"Burn her!" these pious people screamed outside the courthouse after her arrest. If a trial had taken place then, she would surely been sentenced to death.

Since that time, some people have calmed down and are holding prayer vigils on her behalf. They realize that she is one of them, a product of their community. Moreover, they know that only a very troubled woman would drown her babies.

But that change of attitude says as much about the arbitrariness of a death sentence as it does about the people of Union. What's often decisive is if the trial is held right away and if the accused is from a leading family, from the wrong side of the tracks or is a stranger.

If Smith is condemned to die, she would join 45 other women on Death Row, U.S.A., where the total population is about 3,000. Most of them are poor, a disproportionate number are black and an overwhelming majority had lousy lawyers.

Who gets life and who gets death is the luck of the draw unless you're rich and famous. Smith is lucky. Her lawyers are among the best in the state. Maybe her luck will hold out and she'll have a jury with good sense.