To determine if the killing, or any action, is justified, the reason, "ends", for it must be examined.
It took me a while to understand these statements.
Above I think you're using the word "ends" as the reason. I think in the idiom the word "means" is the equivalent to "reason," "morals" or "principles". And "End" is the final result itself without judgement.
If someone is trying to take an innocent life, they may be killed in self-defense. The means, stopping innocent murder, justifies the end, the dead perp.
The opposite is if I want someone dead just because I believe they are a bad person, I kill them without provocation and invent a false narrative that it was self-defense, I've used the end result (a dead bad guy) to justify lying about what happened.
No matter how righteous or noble one thinks their goal (end) is, it does not justify ignoring principles, morals or laws just to accomplish their goal. The process, rules and mores of a society should be allowed to take their course and sometimes, we hope most of the time, the end result will be righteous. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes the guilty go free.
To my point, what I'm saying is liberals generally follow EJM and they will lie, steal and cheat in order to accomplish their goals. They feel their actions are justified because their goals/ends are so righteous. I'm not accusing anyone in particular, this is a generalization based on my observations of politicians and the media.