Protecting others is a lovely excuse for some of the greatest murders . How many criminals were executed in the name of the state to keep their own illegal activities covered ? So many have been imprisoned without any reason , without proof and sometimes with fraudulent or faulty proof . People end up vilified not because of an actual crime they committed but because of what the mental image of these people was shaped up to . If every murderer is nothing short of filth that is to be executed you do not just set the grounds for their execution but also how people will immediately think of them as soon as the connection to murder is made . Not that it lessens the tragedy of actual murder , but how many innocents are murdered just so sate this desire to see murderers killed ? If I look at the US then I see a lot of people screaming EXECUTE HIM without much more proof than him being called a murderer whether justified or not . THAT is the scary part to me , not the actual execution .