Yeah right, the criminals from the Balkan are lining up at the border to come to The Hague!
And you are right if the death penalty is in the law, it sure is lawful to execute. My personal opinion, and luckily indeed the majority in The Netherlands and Europe agree with me (but I wouldn't call it the Dutch school of thought, just as I wouldn't categorize your position as the American school of thought, grey areas remember!) is that I do not agree with a law that condones the death penalty and that's what this debate is about.
Btw killing in self defense or killing someone, who directly threatens the lifes of other people is again a whole other thing as injecting an unarmed and chained man to death, no matter how threatening he was before.
Btw to come back to the murder/kill controversy, so Jesus wasn't murdered at the cross, he was killed, since it wasn't unlawful, he had a trial, didn't he, and he was found guilty by a few more than 12 of his peers?
Also I don't think your Bush's number 1 fan, because you disagree with me or the Dutch school of thought, but because you consider any attack on his policies an attack on America!