What does Conservative Judaism say about the death penalty?

The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards issued a ruling on Capital Punishment, authored by Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser, in 1960.  It states:
 
"...The Talmud ruled out the admissibility of circumstantial evidence in cases which involved a capital crime.  Two witnessed were required to testify that they saw the action with their own eyes.  A man could not be found guilty of a capital crime through his own confession or through the testimony of immediate members of his family.  The rabbis demanded a condition of cool premeditationin the act of crime before their would sanction the death penalty; the specific test on which they insisted was that the criminal be warned prior to the crime, and that the criminal indicate by responding to the warning, that he is fully aware of his deed, but that he is determined to go through with it.  In effect this did away with the application of the death penalty.  The rabbis were aware of this, and they declared openly that they found capital punishment repugnant to them

.....There is another reason which argues for the abolition of capital punishment.  It is the fact of human fallibility.  Too often we learn of people who were convicted of crimes and only later are new facts uncovered by which their innocence is established.  The doors of the jail can be opened, in such cases we can partially undo the injustice.  But the dead cannot be brought back to life again.  We regard all forms of capital punishment as barbaric and obsolete..."

["Proceedings of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards 1927-1970" Volume III, p.1537-1538]
 

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A more recent resolution of the Rabbinical Assembly (1996) states:
 
"Whereas the Torah teaches that all human beings are created in God's image; Whereas Jewish tradition upholds the sanctity of life;

Whereas both in concept and practice rabbinic leaders in many different historical periods have found capital punishment repugnant;

Whereas no evidence has marshalled to indicate with any persuasiveness that capital punishment serves as a deterrent to crime;

Whereas legal studies have shown that as many as 300 people in this century have been wrongly convicted of capital crimes;

Therefore be it resolved that the Rabbinical Assembly oppose the adoption of death penalty laws, and urge their abolition in states that already adopted them;

That the Rabbinical Assembly urge the enactment of laws that mandate that some capital crimes be punishable by life imprisonment without parole;

That the Rabbinical Assembly offer support and speak out on behalf of the victims of violent crime and their families;

That the Rabbinical Assembly encourage its members to send this resolution to their appropriate elected officials."

["Proceedings of the Rabbinical Assembly 1996", p.293]