For many years I was in favor of capital punishment but in more recent years I've become less certain and am a bit undecided.

Personally, I believe that if someone commits (first degree/premeditated) murder then they forfeit their right to exist on this planet. But, our justice system is flawed and has made numerous mistakes, imprisoning innocent people for decades and even executing innocent people. So, this has forced me to re-evaluate my support of capital punishment. Now, I'm slightly against capital punishment. If our justice system was infallible, I'd be in favor of capital punishment completely, but as it stands, I'd rather some people remain in prison for their entire lives than an innocent person get executed.

I'm in the U.S. where capital punishment laws vary from state to state. I live in a state where capital punishment is legal. There have been 2 executions in my state this year and only 1 last year. The most since 1976 (when it became legal) was 9 execution in 2016.

No, serves no real purpose here except to guarantee that we'll have to pay for more than one trial. Like with everything it's more likely an outcome based on economics than guilt.

I write this with the heavy heart of one who lost a loved one to homicide. DNA evidence has proven a number of innocent people have been executed, and this does and should horrify all of us.
But in instances where the perp is apprehended at the scene, or DNA proves beyond a shadow of a doubt who committed the crime, I am ok with the death penalty being considered. There are some acts in this world so heinous that I unapologetically believe the perp forfeits the right to exist. I have listened to arguments that the death penalty takes an average of 13 years of appeals. Well, the death penalty was never considered in our case, and we've been through more years of appeals that that already. I've heard arguments that it's expensive. It's expensive for all cases, not just death penalty cases. Criminals never stop dreaming up ways to chip away at their sentences with new and novel appeals.
But where are the victims and their families? We are opening mailboxes to find the dreaded letter from the prosecutor that we need to traipse back to a court house 350 miles away to represent the person we lost to make sure he's not forgotten. We are watching autopsy photos flashed on an enormous screen so lawyers can bicker over knife wounds. The crime scene photos are far worse, and they are indelibly etched into my psyche. Sometimes the murderer smirks at us from the stand. Sometimes his family insults us. One day this murderer will be released, free and clear. We will never have peace or the freedom to stop thinking about him, because we know he will walk among us one day. Would you like to meet him on the street?
The death penalty is "never acceptable?" Trade places with me. We will see how you feel.

State sanctioned murder should not be allowed.

The writer Dostoevsky escaped a firing squad by the skin of his teeth, being lined up and ready to be shot. He explains the horror of capital punishment, and why it is more savage than ordinary killing, in his book The Idiot. I won't paste the text of this section of the book because it's too long but it can be read here:

[godandculture.com]

It shouldn't exist anywhere. In this country, our judicial system is such a corupt and prejudicial system, it should be eliminated.There is no telling how many innocent people have been executed in this country alone.

"No" for many reasons, any one of which is enough for me to be against it.

Punishment (Documentary):

There have been too many false convictions, too many people executed and later proven innocent.

No, under any circumstances at all.