Regardless of how you feel about the death penalty, does it shock you that letters to Ohio's governor are running 5-to-1 in favor of ending capital punishment? It shouldn't. On a whole, people aren't death-mongers. How many people do you know that would write a letter to the governor like this:
"Dear Mr Governor,
Please keep using the electric chair. Lethal injection is cool, too.
Your friend, Steve"
It just doesn't happen.
But people will crawl over land and sea in order to voice their objections to the death penalty. I'm not quite sure why people are so passionate about defending the lives of murderers when there are innocents all around the world dying preventable deaths that could also use advocates.
Personally [and I know you're dying to know], I am for the death penalty; it's a necessary punishment for those who take another life. Despite those who wish to use a few isolated comments of Jesus to condemn capital punishment, you can easily derive a Scriptural ethic exists that would support it. It's a post-Noadic flood [second creation] mandate that "whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man." This commandment precedes Mosaic law, making it very difficult to refute.
We should not rejoice in the taking of life, but there are times when it is necessary.