Yes, the banning of the juvenile death penalty was...

[9th Engineer]

Still, the death penalty says more than just "we will punish you for your crime" in the same way because you can get life in jail for things less than murder. The death penalty says "We have deemed your actions so abhorent that we refute your right to live". And that's why I'm glad we have it. I don't even think it's punishment, once you're dead everything kind of loses its meaning to you. I'm trying to think of what society used to punish it's worst criminals by not only killing them, but erasing them from all records as if they never existed. Basically saying "You should never have existed on this Earth, we are fixing that problem". Sends a different message, maybe it'll reach its target better.