Death Row.. opinions?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/09/23/national/a002450D05.DTL
Today I was thinking about the prisoners in are jails that are on death row... Do you think its right for people to take away someone elses life for punishment? This is a topic that is barely spoken of but I actually don't agree with putting a felon to death even if they did do something wrong. No one should take away something so special as life, even if the criminal on death row did take away a life. I tried understanding from the point of view of the families who had something or someone in the family attacked by a wrongdoer, how would they feel about this topic... death will solve the problems for them I guess. If someone in my family was hurt or killed by a civilian I would of course feel anger and hurt, but I wouldn't want the person who committed the crime to die, maybe jail for life but not death. It's a topic that also causes many different and varied opinions depending on who you ask. If I were to be in the felons shoes I would of course regret whatever I did, considering the severeness of the situation. So being locked up for life seems like the most fair and the best solution instead of death. The United States also uses a lot of our tax money on the jails. We spend on average billions of dollars just for something that can be solved, without death putting a end to everything. What do you think?