Christians only, please… If your child were to kill, wouldn’t you want him or her to have the maximum amount of time to find God and repent? Wouldn’t you want to show him mercy, if only because it increases the chance that he would realize the magnitude of his crime? Haven’t Christians noticed how incredibly rare murder is within the Amish and Mennonite communities, who abhor the death penalty? If you wouldn’t call for the death penalty for your own son, then how as a Christian could you call for it for your neighbor’s son? Why isn’t it good enough to lock up and minister to the fallen, and leave punishment and retribution to God- do we think that Jesus would be glad to personally administer lethal injections were he here with us in the flesh? Does the fact that St. Paul, the single most influential Christian who has ever lived, was a redeemed murderer mean anything to us? What if the state had cut him down before his conversion- would that have been a good thing?