PS - according to this there's only been 13 executions in California since 1978 so if it is 4bn then the 300m each isn't far off. http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Capital_Punishment/Number_Executions.html No idea why it won't link, c&p it.
It's not crap, it's a demonstrable fact that in countries that have the death penalty it costs more to execute someone than it does to imprison them for life. There's a lengthier trial and appeal process and it costs more to keep a death row prisoner than someone in general population. Add it all up and it is significantly more expensive to put someone to death than keep them in prison. There's no good argument for the death penalty - it all boils down to a base, animalistic lust for retribution. As others have pointed out, this is the politics of ISIS and not the politics of a modern forward thinking society.
The point I am making is that putting a rope around someone's neck and dropping them from a height is barbaric as is strapping someone down and giving them a lethal injection or strapping them in a chair and electrocuting them. It's not relevant what crime was committed. You can't say that a child killer's execution was less barbaric than say the execution of a gay man in Muslim country. The actual process is barbaric.
I am absolutely saying that an execution designed to be as quick and painless as possible is infinitely less barbaric than some of the brutally horrific executions conducted in some parts of the world. While there are exceptions, things do go wrong, the majority of executions in places like the USA are humane when compared to the almost unimaginable horror that can been seen relatively easily on the Internet.
Agree some methods of execution are less barbaric than others but to my mind they are all barbaric. There isn't a non-barbaric way of killing someone.
I agree that some methods are more barbaric than others and while dustani is right in that the actual act of taking a life is the same it is clear that some methods are more humane than others otherwise we would see vets burning dogs alive. That said the methods authorised in the likes of the USA aren't the most humane. Firing squad, hanging and electrocution are all currently authorised in various states.