Halakhah zu Schemuel II 1:15

Ritva questions how it was possible for Rabbi Eleazar ben Shimon to pass judgment without testimony of witnesses or prior warning and how it was possible for him to do so in a historical epoch in which the Sanhedrin no longer existed. Ritva explains that Rabbi Eleazar ben Shimon was the agent of the king and that the king may rightfully execute evildoers even in the absence of prior admonition and without the benefit of the testimony of two eyewitnesses.¹³See R. Benjamin Rabinowitz-Teumim, Ha-Torah ve-ha-Medinah, IV, 80, who notes that R. Eleazar ben Shimon acted in an official capacity and, even according to Ritva, only a person specifically delegated by the monarch to perform such functions may deliver a criminal into the hands of civil authorities. Ritva further points to the extrajudicial execution of the Amalekite proselyte by King David, recorded in II Samuel 1:15, as an example of punishment on the basis of administration of "the King's justice." Thus Ritva explicitly states that, according to Rabbi Eleazar ben Shimon, even non-Jewish monarchs are authorized to administer extrastatutory punishment in accordance with "the King's justice."