The death penalty is sometimes necessary. Criminals wont think about how bad prison is because they don't have enough sense to think about how bad prison can be but if they know that they could die because of their crimes, they might just reconsider. It also serves to stop the people that won't stop no matter what you tell them and keep them from wasting tax payers money to keep them locked up and never integrating with real society. Now that being said, taking another persons live is a serious matter and all humans deserve some degree of respect. If someone must die then it must be a quick death and one that will hopefully not hurt the person.