Is the death penalty justice or revenge?

[swl]

If someone murdered one of my relative, I would probably feel like doing something horrible to him. If someone raped one of my children, I would probably like to torture him to death, or something like that. But is it the right thing to do?

I think that one of the goals of any State is to reduce violence and to aim towards the ideal goal of a perfectly peaceful society. In this process there is a point where the State has to abandon state-sponsored murder if it wants to further reduce violence among its citizens. Most Western countries have reached that point a while ago, but it's true that the USA are very far from Western standards when it comes to violence in the society. Yet, the fact that this issue is being seriously debated shows that the USA may be not far from the tipping point.