He offered to plead guilty if the prosecution agreed not to seek the death penalty . Prosecution declined his offer and wants to take it to trial so they can sentence him to death <| sep |> I ' ve mentioned this in previous replies , but lets take the argument in that direction as far as saying all life is equal and it is as equally bad to kill a plant as it is to kill an animal . Even in that circumstance it ' s still better to stop eating animals , because of the conversion of plant food into animal food . Animals also need to eat . They eat plants . Lots of plants . It takes a whole lot more plants to feed and grow an animal just to kill it and eat it than it does to use the same amount of plants to feed a human directly for the same amount of food as the animal ' s meat . Not eating animals reduces overall consumption , of everything . Plant and animal .