LH, I have no problems with agreeing to disagree. But it won't stop me disagreeing some more. :-)

I still do not care for capital punishment, but I would apply it in wartime...to looters, rapists....soldiers and individuals who take deliberate advantage of social chaos. Then and probably only then, I would not hesitate to use capital punishment.

Social chaos is not just wartime - consider riots in any city (LA riots in the US, Bradford in the UK, football hooligans from any country in Europe), or any inner-city environment where the social system is in tatters. Some cities are practically a war in themselves!

...the people who break under whatever strain of everyday life in a corrupt money-poisoned society and commit small crimes on an individual basis.

That's the point - murder and rape are never "small" crimes. The absolute need for society is to get those responsible away to somewhere where they can't kill, and then sort them out. If they're not likely to do it again, then fine. If there's some therapy or councilling or drugs which will help them, then fine. But if you're just going to let them out and wait for them to shoot someone else, then this is unjustifiable - the right of a single innocent person to life outweighs all the rights of every criminal. Someone (I don't know who) once said "the Constitution is not a suicide pact". I would accord a convicted criminal all the rights possible (I believe the state of most jails in most countries is shocking), but I absolutely will not grant them the right to kill again. And I don't believe there's any point in leaving them to rot in a cell for 80 years - this is true vengeance.

You're right that there are also "the few" who are money-rich but scruple-poor. If they rip someone off, they'll be jailed too. But theft, even on a grand scale, is not the same as murder. Theft may impinge on your quality of life, but murder stops your life, full stop.

Grab.