Quangoid - you do seem to very angry - I am not sure if this is you, or just that certain issues get you going.
I think that confusing people who are against CP with `hand wringers`is a mistake because it infers that an extreme position at either end of the argument is the only possible way to view this.
As I see it, capital punishment is not `punishment`at all, since the concept of punishment is to ensure that the experience means that the perpetrator will not carry out the same act again - tricky if they are murdered before they get a chance to show that any punishment has actually had the desired effect.
Capital punishment is not a deterrent, simply because no-one who commits a capital crime considers that they will even be caught, much less convicted and executed. That requires rational logical thinking which is utterly at odds with the sort of crime that attract serious levels of redress.
So you are left with what capital punishment actually is - which is revenge, and entirely understandable human reaction to horrible crimes, but not the action of a civilized society.
I cannot support the murder of a criminal, because that makes me, by default, a murderer too. I am perfectly happy for my taxes to be paid to incarcerate a criminal for the time the law decides - but to take a life is simply not an acceptable way to deal with anyone, because murder is still murder, even if you do it inhumanely by any of the proscribed execution methods on the planet.
I am not a `hand wringer`- but I don;t like people being murdered on my behalf either.