Bob Ariail said there was no reasonable alternative to agreeing to drop the death penalty from consideration in the case against Roger Eugene Shephard.

But the prosecutor told The Greenville News that said such deals could encourage others to make a run for the border.

"It sends the wrong message to defendants that you can kill somebody and get to Canada and chances are you might not get sent back, and secondly, you're definitely not going to have to run the risk of the death penalty," Ariail said.

Shephard is charged with murder, assault and battery with intent to kill and armed robbery in the June 2006 killing of Easley pawnshop owner John Bruin.

His Canadian attorney, Marie-Helene Giroux, told the newspaper that Shephard claimed refugee status from cruel and unusual punishment. So even though Canadian immigration authorities ordered him to be deported as an illegal immigrant, the death penalty assurance still applies.

The Canadian Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that people could only be extradited to face charges in another country if the there were guarantees that capital punishment would not be applied in the case, said Chris Girouard, a spokesman for the Canadian Justice Department.

Several other countries have the same standard.

"For them, the death penalty is a fundamental human rights issue," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the national Death Penalty Information Center. "They've looked at issues of innocence and time on death row. For them, it would be like sending someone from the U.S. to another country that wasn't going to have a trial."

But Dieter said it's no more frequent for suspects to be granted amnesty from capital punishment in the U.S. than it is for those to win amnesty here from what the U.S. considers unwarranted punishment in other countries.

"These are bilateral treaties," he said. "This is a treaty that the United States wants respected, too."

Ariail said he discussed the case with Bruin's wife before agreeing to drop the death penalty in February.

Earlier this week, Shephard was turned over to U.S. marshals in New York and he waived extradition from there to South Carolina, Easley Police Maj. Tim Tollison said. He is expected to be back in the state soon.