Absolutely not - especially in the circumstances we use it currently. It should be a very very last resort for people who have absolutely no likelihood of rehabilitation and continue to be a danger to others. It's never served as a very good deterrent because there are two types of people who commit high profile crimes:
1) people who commit spur of the moment, driven by emotion and;
2) people who exhibit anti-social behavior, and believe rules don't apply to them, or will find ways to cover up their actions.
Neither of these are people who are attentive to consequences, so threatening them with the death penalty isn't going to deter them any more than threatening them with a pillow. Punishment deters people from smaller crimes which people are more likely to do as a method of survival or for thrills (theft, prostitution, etc.) But murder isn't something any Jo Shmoe is going to commit - there's a profile for it that is very rarely broken (and when it is, there's usually a lot of debate of whether it was broken at all).
Even with murder, most people can be rehabilitated, since most murders are committed by someone the victim knows for very personal reasons. These aren't people that will necessarily go out and start murdering everyone they know - they were driven by something. A cheating wife, a tattle-tale, a life insurance plan - there's a specific motivation. They should go to prison, but personally I don't believe our current system of punishment is appropriate. What is given to society by someone going to prison? Sure they do some community service here and there but besides that it does nothing but keep them off the street (at the expense of the taxpayers). There are ways of rehabilitating these criminal that is still safe, that gives more back to the community, and that in the end are going to be much better for the offenders.
