True, but they’re not a bad person for lying to you.

Seems like a pretty small price to pay to prevent murder. In fact, I’d go so far as to say you’re a bad person if you’re not willing to pay that price.

What if you’re right though? Isn’t then a perfectly good time to lie? If you know for sure that the death penalty is evil (which doesn’t seem too big a leap given the facts), then it’s wrong not to lie to people to get them to stop it. Otherwise you’d be saying that your own morality outweighs the humanity of others. If it results in no death penalty, it was a good action. People act like the ends aren’t justifying the means in 99.99% of cases. It is notable specifically when the ends do not justify the means. If the ends are preventing murder, and the means is lying, there is no question whether lying is justified.