Also, one last thing Turk: Jesus never condemned the Romans for their justice system which instituted the death penalty for common criminals. Jesus said "Give unto Caesar that which is his"; he never criticized the Romans for executing robbers, thieves, etc., and they used the death penalty far more extensively than we do now.
I respect your viewpoint, but I frankly do not see eye-to-eye with you on this.
Maybe he did criticize it directly - the Gospels were not written as an exhaustive account of everything Jesus ever said, but for things that would have relevance to their particular audiences.
The biggest way in which Jesus critiqued the death penalty was by being subjected to it, which should lead us to question systems of violence meeting out human ideas of justice.
