@OCCOM BILL,
Sounds like you've been there...
As a general rule I cannot support a death penalty in America at this point in time, just too many ways it resembles giving the Ronnie Earles and Mike Nifongs of the world a license to kill people.
Before I could feel good about the idea I'd want minimally the following criteria to apply:
1. Guilt should be beyond any doubt whatsoever; the usual criteria of guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt" doesn't cut it for hanging somebody.
2. The person in question must represent a continuing threat to society should he ever escape or otherwise get loose. The "bird man" of Alcatraz would not qualify, John Muhammed clearly would.
3. I'd want all career/money incentives for convicting people of crimes gone which would likely mean scrapping the present "adversarial" system of justice in favor of something like the French "inquisitorial" system in which the common objective of all parties involved was a determination of facts.
4. I'd want there to be no societal benefit to keeping the person alive. Cases in which this criteria would prevent hanging somebody would include "Son of Sam" who we probably should want to study more than hang, or Timothy McVeigh who clearly knew more than the public ever was allowed to hear.
Given all of that I could feel very good about hanging Charles Manson, John Muhammed, or Paul Bernardo, but that's about what it would take.