Jazz, your comments address a large issue, and one which lots of people are confused about.
Until quite recently, in the large picture of human history, there was absolutely no conflict between religion and capital punishment, since crime was seen as an affront to the gods as well as the state and/or its citizens. The Bible enjoins punishment by death, and no easy death, to those who commit certain grave crimes, and this was carried through for some 3000 years. I have a mid-19th century prayer book which contains a form for the visitation of prisoners, which has a most interesting harangue to be delivered to a prisoner awaiting execution. No one at the time saw anything inappropriate in a priest, or the Church, colluding, as it were, in the carrying out of the demands of justice. Until just a couple generations ago, only a relatively few advanced thinkers thought that there was anything wrong with punishing with death the worst crimes on the books. Indeed, it was thought to be advanced thinking when governments and rulers stopped executing people by breaking on the wheel, burning at the stake, hanging drawing and quartering, etc. Remember that the guillotine was invented as an instrument of merciful death because hangings were so often botched.
Certainly there are practical problems with the death penalty and I agree that it should not be applied where there is any doubt at all as to the guilt of the criminal. But, in the relatively few cases where there is absolutely no doubt, or the criminal has made a free and totally uncoerced confession, I think it is not only appropriate but necessary for the ends of justice. Part of the concept of justice is equitable treatment and restoring balances. Where possible, the taking of an innocent life by a criminal calls for the taking of his. I reject with horror the modern notion that the death sentence is called for in order for the victims' families to have "closure". This is only pandering to the basest of human emotions and the desire for vengeance. Far better for people, in the long run, and necessary for their spiritual health, that they get over their loss and become able to live with it, rather than letting it eat away at them for the ten to twenty years it usually takes in the US to execute a criminal, or live with it forever if the criminal is not executed. In the case of McVeigh, there was no real doubt of his guilt, and he himself did not deny that he was guilty, and his lawyers certainly gave every indication that they knew he was guilty. My only criticism of how he was dispatched is that he should not have been allowed access to the media and the whole thing should have beeen downplayed as far as anything can be in these media-dominated times.
