You know, I can see your point. In general I am not keen on capital punishment; it seems to me an admission that we as a society have failed to reach and nourish the decent impulses that lie buried within the heart of every monster. To execute somebody is a form of giving up.
But maybe sometimes giving up is the wisest course. If a mad dog is prowling the streets attacking and biting all who approach, well, maybe you can capture it and treat it and cure it; but it's a whole lot safer to just kill it.
As far as what was depicted in this movie, Hans Akkerman was just such a mad dog. He had already engineered the deaths of a handful of his "friends" in order to protect his secret, and had almost succeeded in killing Ellis by his own hand. Not to mention the scores, perhaps hundreds, of deaths in which he was complicit through his alliance with Franken. This is a man who could reliably be expected to kill again, if he had the chance.
So I for one was cheering Ellis on as she screwed down the lid on his coffin. To me it seemed that, given all that had happened, what she did was not only justified, it was the right, proper, wisest and best course of action.
But you, I see, aspire to something higher. So tell me: What is your answer to killers like Hans? If we don't collectively protect ourselves by killing them, what do we do? Do we imprison them until they die? To me that seems in some ways more cruel than executing them. Do we permit them to go free? That imperils everyone around them.
It's a knotty problem. I certainly don't have the answer, and I'd be interested to hear your views.
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