Anti-Climacus

LINK: There's an interesting (partial) discussion on the death penalty going here, in which a commenter points out the practical effects or implementation of the death penalty are (at least sometimes, anyway) not really apposite to consider when mulling over the normative merits.

However, I'd like to carry on with respect to this issue a little further, and note the post in which Chris explains his philosophical objections to the death penalty. Thus:

"I am suspicious of the death penalty not for legal or practical reasons, but philosophical ones; namely, that the state should not have the power to kill its own citizens, whether or not they are of some arbitrary age."

But it seems to me that even theorists as deeply skeptical of granting the state the right to do anything (and I'm thinking quite explicitly here of Robert Nozick in Anarchy, State and Utopia), have to grant the state the right (at least sometimes) to kill its own citizens, because this seems like a necessary precondition to having a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Chris, I would guess, thinks that police officers, acting in their official capacity as agents of the state, should be able to shoot-to-kill if they themselves are being shot at, or other innocent people are being shot at. Now, I suppose you could argue that the death penalty is different than the above scenario (I'm also pretty sure that a principle limiting when it's okay for the state to kill someone should be in play, but presumably that's addressed positively through the law), but not, it seems to me, on the basis of the principle that the state should not have the power to kill its own citizens.

But I also could be missing part of the philosophical support for the argument...