Consider this -- How gruesome would an execution look like such that you would feel sorry for the person being executed?  A public viewing of that person being decapitated? ..or, the prisoner being fed, alive, to a couple of hungary lions? ...or, the criminal being slowly lowered, via tethered ankles, into a vat of hot water, or hot oil? ... or, with his/her wrists and ankles each tied to a different rope, then having that person gradually have limbs pulled off?...or, talk about gruesome, how about a crucifiction (hands and feet nailed to crossing poles which is  put upright into a hole in the ground so that the person hangs on those nails until his (still alive) body sags so much that he gradually finds his ability to breath is cut off.  

Making an execution look like a pleasant medical procedure does not change the fact the State (that would be you and me and the rest of the 300,000,000 citizens) is killing (or sponsoring the killing of) a human being which is an option granted to us by laws that have been created by us.

How is it that a country which likes to believe it is the model of what a country should be...how is it we can be so blind.  

And none of what  I have said here addresses the juxtiposition of the lack of effectiveness of capital punishment and its prohibitive cost (in dollars).  We could improve the lives of a lot of people with the extra money required to execute versus life without parole.

Yeah, I feel sorry alright.  I am sorry for those among us who cannot see the damage to ourselves (and our budget issues) that will plague us until we rid ourselves of this need for revenge and learn the methods and technics and practice of empathy.

And how can we be a model 21st century nation when we can not even improve on some bad laws in use over 2,000 years ago or even 200 years ago?