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Another Moral Question(s)

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gravilhammerstone:
Something interesting came up in our campaign tonight. We have two paladins in our group. One who is Chaotic Good and another who is Lawful Good. The Chaotic Good paladin is a paladin of freedom of course. So here is what happened:

Earlier in the story we came across two Astral Stalkers. The one that attacked the party cracked his knuckles (or uh, claws) and told his other buddy he was going to "handle this" (meaning the PCs). The other Astral Stalker ran away. We killed the first Astral Stalker and later after leaving the dungeon we see two more Astral Stalkers outside. The Chaotic Good paladin recognizes them from before and detects that they are evil and decides to attack them. Prior to this we learned that the Astral Stalkers were hired to kill us. Upon coming out of the dungeon they looked to us and said it was "over" (assuming their contract was up now or something and they weren't going to be attacking the PCs).

The Lawful Good paladin stays and does not decide to attack - stating that the Astral Stalkers are not aggressive. The Chaotic Good paladin continues his attack (the other two party members help him in "smiting evil"). Is the Chaotic Good's paladin actions justified? Did he violate his code of conduct? He rationalizes the attack stating they were attacked by the evil Astral Stalkers before, but the LG paladin states that this Astral Stalkers could have been different.

What is your take? I'm interested in hearing some opinions. :D

Edited: For grammar.

veekie:
Well, the simple way to see it is:
1) Do you believe in pre-emptive smiting?
2) Is the Astral Stalker likely to cause extreme harm to someone who didn't deserve it in the near future? If they are mercenaries or killers for hire, it's probably yes.
3) Is retaliation justified?

Once you've answered these you should have an answer.
Personally, killing them to prevent them from harming others would be on the shady side of good, but still good.
Killing them in revenge, assuming they've already killed people who didn't deserve it, is neutral-ish.
Killing them for no reason other than their being evil would be probably evil, unless the paladin's order is one of those who believe in burn first, ask questions never.

gravilhammerstone:
1) The CG paladin believed that the world needed to be cleansed of the evil outsiders, so striking them first, he believed benefited the "greater good" of the situation.
2) Yes. The Astral Stalkers were hired to kill, and will probably be hired to kill again.
3) Having been attacked by the Astral Stalkers before, the paladin believed the action was justified - seeing that they were evil.

I believe it would fall under "Killing them from harming others would be on the shady side of good, but still good" option you have.

veekie:
Well, it fulfills the criteria then, though as mentioned, it'd be a little shady even if its' legit under his code.
Probably issue a minor infraction warning, I figure most practical orders and gods allow for a little fallibility in their knights, especially where smiting is concerned.

Nyarlathop1:
As long as his reason was that they were going to hurt other people because they were working as assassins, then it shouldn't cause him to fall.

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