Well, I have woken after a long night deep in sleep contemplating this serious issue....

In cases where the evidence is pretty much indisputed, I don't really have a huge problem with it. Why spend hundreds of pounds of taxpayers money on a cell for someone who has butchered and raped 20 people? Morally I find the death sentence somewhat pupugnant, but I find the high cost of keeping these savage types in relative comfort to be repugnant too.

Serial killers are never going to mend their ways really, so I am more comfortable with letting types like that get the chop. But for single time offenders, I am far less comfortable. There is always the chance that rehabilitation will prove more successful. In enforcing the death penalty the evidence must be undisputed, if there is any doubt then the penalty should wait or be called off altogether.

Another option might be to offer the offender suicide as a way out. "Here's some pills. Death will be quite painless. You make your choice". It puts it more into the offenders hands then.