Enlightened times?

The news is really depressing, what with all the corporal and capital punishment stories in the headlines. I really have a problem with this, particularly the latter.
I believe that it is wrong to kill another human being, no matter what they have done. There other ways in which they can be punished, imprisonment for example. I have difficulty too, in understanding the mindset of those who are prepared to authorise legal murder. I assume that such persons consider themselves in some way morally superior to their intended victims. I have reached this conclusion because those countries who still have the death penalty are in some ways idealogical, whether politically or in terms of religion.
 It is sheer arrogance to claim that it is permissible for the State to kill, but not for others. It is hypocrisy to claim to believe in a religion that says that murder is wrong, but to then go on to carry out murder. The person who has sanctioned the murder does not get his own hands dirty, as he will have others carry out the deed. Very clinical. No stain on his conscience. Of course there are countries in the world where capital punishment is used as a way of ensuring complete compliance with its beliefs, and to ensure that any difference of opinion is quickly snuffed out. Such views belong to the middle ages.
What we need to remember too, is that it is not just the people whose stories make the headlines. There must be many others too, whose stories we are not told about, who suffer every day somewhere in the world.
This way of doing things must change. It is barbaric. It is just plain wrong.