Not taking anything away from what John wrote as he\'s absolutely correct, I think the OP is asking about killing the chicks so I will add a couple of things.
When I first started out, I would put the baby chicks in a small cottage cheese container or something and put that in the freezer. Read about that somewhere. Those who are familiar with hypothermia know how \"humane\" that would be as they basically fall asleep and then freeze to death. The brain also loses it\'s cognizant abilities so I doubt the chick even feels a thing.
Having said that, I now do something quite drastically different. When I have to put chicks down now, I just grab the body with my left hand, place my right hand around and over the head to more or less put it in darkness, and then with one very quick jerk I pull the head off.
I know that sounds terrible but believe me it is much harsher sounding that it really is. The head comes off VERY easily and I imagine there is absolutely no pain or stress involved at all.
As for the Capital Punishment, I\'m with Mike. If there is a confession or two or more eye witnesses that leave no doubt, then for certain heinous crimes, the punishment is life for life.
God Bless,