Assuming it's 1st degree murder with no justification, then yes capital punishment is appropriate. Otherwise that same murderer can kill guards at will in prison with impunity. Although some people don't believe it because you can't prove a negative, capital punishment also acts as a deterrent. The example I give is that light houses were designed to prevent boats from colliding. You can't be sure they worked but you didnt tear them down.

As exhaustive as your list of options is, I don't find my position there. I think there are nuances that need to be taken into consideration -- are you fighting to save your own life? Are you fighting to protect your family? Are you someone who has been trafficked and you see a chance to get away and the only way is through your captor? Those come immediately to mind. In the US it's more expensive to house a convicted murderer for the rest of their life because of the built in system of appeals. I think those are necessary because humans are flawed and it isn't uncommon to see a sentence overturned -- sometimes decades later. But there are also, to my mind, people who cannot be among the rest of us and perhaps killing them is appropriate. I have one caveat -- I think that in the case of an execution one of the members of the convicting jury should be chosen randomly and be responsible for the actual execution -- pushing the switch, or triggering the injections, or whatever. And the method should be as humane as possible -- something we have not figured out yet. There are cases when lethal injections took as long as an hour to complete because most of that time was taken up by trying to find a vein that would work. So it's a really murky matter.

Odd how some people who don't trust the government to do anything right or fairly support giving the same government authority to kill it's own populace judiciously. Total disconnect.

That someone affected at close quarters by a murder now wants Capital punishment is a telling point. Justice cannot be emotionally driven; it needs be based on clear principles of justice avoid revenge. Capital punishment is problematic because: sometimes the wrong person is convicted, the affect on those who must carry out the sentence can be horrific, and a significant or life sentence is also just as a punishment.

I voted for life in prison for 3 reasons:

1. It's much more expensive to execute someone than to keep them locked up for life because of all the appeals & the high cost of operating death row.

2. If the person is later exonerated, you can't un-execute them.

3. None of the other civilized countries have capital punishment as far as I know.

In my humble opinion, capitol punishment is also murder. It’s just my opinion....I base it on the fact that I am not capable of taking a life.