Capital Punishment 11

Capital punishment is the lawful infliction of death as a punishment and since ancient times, it has been used for a wide variety of offences.

Is capital punishment ethically acceptable?
The state clearly has no absolute right to put its subjects to death although, of course, almost all countries do so in some form or other (but not necessarily in the conventional form of capital punishment).   In most countries, it is by arming their police forces and accepting the fact that people will from time to time be shot as a result and therefore at the state's behest.
A majority of a state's subjects may wish to confer the right to put certain classes of criminal to death through referendum or voting in state elections for candidates favouring capital punishment. Majority opinion in some democratic countries is still in favour of the death penalty.
It is reasonable to assume that if a majority is in favour of a particular thing in a democracy, their wishes should be seriously considered with equal consideration given to the downside of their views.
A fact that is conveniently overlooked by anti-capital punishment campaigners is that we are all ultimately going to die. In many cases, we will know of this in advance and suffer great pain and emotional anguish in the process. This is particularly true of those diagnosed as having terminal cancer.   It is apparently acceptable to be "sentenced to death" by one's family doctor without having committed any crime at all but totally unacceptable to be sentenced to death by a judge having been convicted of murder or drug trafficking (the crimes for which the majority of executions are carried out) after a careful and fair trial.
The alternatives.
What are the realistic alternatives to the death penalty?
Any punishment must be fair, just, adequate and most of all, enforceable. Society still views murder as a particularly heinous crime which should be met with the most severe punishment. Whole life imprisonment could fit the...