I am glad to hear this. I have the feeling that criminals were getting death sentences deliberately for free food.

If it works and they come out the other end as productive, peaceful members of society, why not?  Revenge?  Is that more important than stopping the cycle of crime?  Would it really be better to have them miserable in prison and then they get out and murder again? 

The last two minutes of the second video talks about this. 

Let's assume it works (I don't, but let's go with it) for the sake of this argument. What exactly is this cycle of crime? I am thinking that if you outright execute the pre-meditated murder convitcs, you literally end the cycle right then and there. You don't take any chances with the possibility of them killing again, and justice is, at least a little bit (some crimes I've heard about probably deserve to be punishable by extreme torture too), served.

And what about the cost?  With a punishment as extreme and final as death you have to be as certain as possible that the convicted are in fact guilty.  That is why they spend so long on death row getting appeal after appeal.  Even then, DNA tests have exonerated more than a few death row convicts, some posthumously, IIRC.  And you propose extending this extremely costly process by orders of magnitude, to thousands of people per year?  I am thinking that you have no idea what your proposal would cost the society you're allegedly trying to help. 

I am more than fine paying money to kill off people that have committed crimes such as these. I have a problem with paying for something as utterly pointless as a last meal, even just out of principle.

That is not really the case. Texas which is a so-called religious state (highly christian protestant) engages in such hipocrisy it's ridiculous. They are stuck in old testament which had stopped applying really since the new testament (according to scriptures, the whole turn the other cheek thing). An execution is nothing but a revenge kill. Yes if a family member of mine would be brutally murdered I would contemplate (or immediately react by attacking that "evil" person) but my action would not make it right. By killing someone you are automatically stooping to their level of savagery and makes you no better than them. If you were to truly punish a person, just place them in solitary confinement with pictures of their victims smiling at that for the rest of their lives.

In the end, it is not about feeling sorry for these people, but more to do with not sinking to their level. Not to mention that because of human error, there have been cases where an innocent is executed (not many of course), and at that point you have to ask yourself, is it really worth risking an innocent being executed? It's like when the US goes to war and civilian casualties happen. Do those casualties mean nothing because of the "greater good"? Imagine a family member of yours being wrongly accused of gruesome murders, and then executed just for you to find out years later that he/she was innocent? The death penalty is just people playing God. Now in the case of someone viewing this through atheist eyes, who has given another human being the right to take another's life? I understand using self defense (self preservation), but commiting to the same action as the individual inferior to you doesn't make you a low life as well? This is a touchy subject indeed but people have to learn to take a breather and think. Regardless of how despicable, a life is a life.

So what you are saying here is you would rather pay for your family member's murder's  food, shelter, entertainment, and  health benifits for the rest of your life while your loved family member is no longer with you. The national average per inmate is close to $25,000. There are people in this country who dont even make $20,000 with children and health benifits but these scum deserve dental?  You arent automatically stooping to thier level you are ridding the world of a scum bag POS that killed someone dear to you. Your family member did nothing wrong but walk to his/her car after picking up dinner and...BAM. Fucking bullet through his/her fucking head over a car and $40bucks and you want to play nice and keep him in a warm cell for the rest of his life. He doesnt have to worry about bills, shelter, food ever again but you are happy he is in prison networking with the other murderers in there.

THESE PEOPLE MURDER!

No... you CANT find a good steak for $1.