> It is sinful to hope that anyone will go to hell.
Who says?
> But all Christians, anyway, are obliged to hope that he might be saved somehow.
Says you?
Read the Gospel, read St. Paul, read the writings of any saint or Father of the Church, read the Catechism.
Wishing that another person should be damned means wishing that that person should never have any faith, never have any charity. It means wishing that that person reject God definitively. That means wishing that evil happen. Wishing that evil should happen is sinful, by definition!
The State has the right to execute criminals, and citizens have the right to support the State in doing so.
It is no function of the State to send anybody to Hell.
Hell is not a place of temporary punishment, or reform, or a means of protecting society from criminals. Hell is the state of people who have utterly rejected God, irrevocably. Actually hoping that a person should go to Hell is hoping that human being be an utter failure in the only way that ultimately counts.
There’s nothing “conservative” about hoping a person goes to Hell.