I’m not sure what definition of “criminal” you’re using to make that assessment. All the ones I know are based on laws, which are enacted by states. You have to accept the very framing you’re decrying to call anything criminal.

We can start with "killing an innocent person is criminal"...

Isn't an act criminal simply by breaking a criminal statue? I.e. someone did something that we had already agreed shouldn't be done?

Criminality isn't absolute, it requires the context of what those in charge decided shouldn't be done.

What has innocent to do with it ?

Innocent under whose eyes ? one man’s revolutionary is another man’s terrorist. what morality and code stands the test of time ?

actions which was legal and moral say 200 years ago would be illegal and amoral now , who is to say how 200 years in future would see our framework for ethics from now ?

Taking any sentient life is a crime against nature and humanity.

Societies supporting death penalty are not civilized for the same reasons any cannibals are not.

Killing is killing, what difference does it make if you were hungry or felt scared or vengeance or merely sadistic to justify it .

I think... it has to do with "start with" part of their statement (as in where to start to find what different people can hopefully reach a consensus on), as a more-likely-to-be agreeable thing than the general "killing a person".

what good will consensus on a statement everyone already agrees on help with ? nobody is ok innocents with being executed[2] . Even the Texan criminal justice system responsible for a third of the about 1600 executions since 1976 will say they don't want innocent to be executed. They just say everyone is guilty.

The methods to establish innocence or exonerate[1] in legal systems objectively are extremely difficult or impossible. People will never be able to agree on who is innocent, no matter how obvious it looks to you or me.

DNA evidences have exonerated many in the recent years, many of the executed were mentally ill, a lot of the evidence is circumstantial and based on unreliable testimony which all too frequently is racially colored, there is no certainty they did the act they are accused of, let alone deserve to die for it.

The only meaningful consensus that can actually make a difference is that death penalty should be abolished.

It is barbaric and morally abhorrent,it is also not ineffective as a punishment, is not deterrent, and also extremely expensive.

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[1] Pardons is not one of them, pardons require admission of guilt

[2] Innocent Americans that is, we are quite fine with "collateral damage" of women and children without any due process in drone strikes or now in Gaza.

Criminals often have a series of codes or personal rules that guide them. It doesn't make them any less criminal.

It's only criminal because those in charge wrote criminal states declaring those acts as such. There's no universal, fundamental code that defines criminal or right and wrong.

I think I'll put my critical but practical trust in government on a grand scale rather than small tribes of anarchist humans with each having their own idea of justice and laws. That didn't go so well for a lot of people in the "Old West" of the US and other examples of that.

Is the difference, in your opinion, scale?

We still have different state governments in the US and different country governments around the globe. Are you more confident in those because its larger groups of people deciding, and enforcing, what is right and wrong?

What the 'scale' appears to do, is to sugarcoat things which appears less hurtful for most people:

1)Eliminate individuals targeting other individuals at a personal level on a routine basis.

2) An officially worded notice, as opposed to some thug threatening at you.

3) Some written text that has has a resembles of order call the 'law'. To give an analogy consider why religions texts appeal to people. People have a lot of reverence for the written word including areas where IMO it should not be relevant: example marriage.

To highlight my point, if a thug were to go around extorting people for money verbally on a periodic bases which are _less_ that the taxes currently paid and provided _more_ services than the government then the targeted individual of the extortion would more resentful than he/she would have been of the government.

So is your argument here that the scale of governments, and their willingness to write down the rules they want to impose, is better mainly due to optics? I.e. we're better off with governments because someone has to be in charge and a government at least appears to be better intentioned thugs due to their use of a pen and paper?

Generally correct. Put another way the government to a large extent are thugs. No, I personally am not sure if we are better of with governments. I have lived in places with virtually no government and those places have generally been better than the ones with the government.

Scale and respect for institutions brings order. Anarchists remind me of one of two things, primitive villages trading with other primitive villages for supplies and goods or post apocalyptic tribes people living off a past of greatness until they become primitive villages trading for supplies and goods of other villages. Anyway that type of life is gone. As soon as a country like the USA goes "anarchist" everything falls apart and another country like Russia or China invades and enslaves the population

I'm not trying to propose anarchism here at all, and agree any shift from the world today to anarchy seems horrible in the short term even if its a long term utopia (trying to be as generous as possible of the upside there).

Respect for institutions is really a sticking point for me though. For one thing, they need to earn and deserve our respect. For another, if respect for institution is the goal then those institutions shouldn't need the power to impose their will upon us.

I don't need someone to that I have respect for to force my hand, and if someone does force my hand I likely won't respect them.

I agree...