yes,
death in town = protection = abuse
examples of abuse;
thief steals, after a while thief gets caught by player, player attacks thief but thief gets away, thief goes to another part of town, punches guard, guard kills thief, thief comes back to town again now protected, thief taunts player, player fires at thief knowing he caught him stealing a minute ago, but now thief is protected, guards kill player, thief takes ALL of players things, thief repeats.
or
Pk comes into town in blue-suit and SMG, Pk bursts and kills another player, guards kill PK, PK repeats (optionally PK's friend cleans up the loot each time)
edit
Example: Silloin waits at random Hub entry points, bursts and kills whatever blue-suit enters, dies and repeats. He seems to have nothing better to do than this which is very sad, but its more annoying and should be punished in a "protected" town
its not even a repercussion for people committing crimes in protected towns, its more of a loop hole.
solution,
two degrees of crime; theft and murder.
thieves are allowed back in to town but are not protected for roughly 30 minutes after crime
murderers are shot on sight by guards for roughly 1 hour after crime and are unprotected for another X hours.
Also, to prevent accidental murders of protected players implement system where players can ask guards weather other players are protected or not.
These towns have 'protection' now lets give them law
Note: i don't see a problem with 30 minutes of no protection for thieves when in 30 seconds they can steal 30 minutes worth of work from another player. Besides thieves are the one class who experience virtually no repercussions in this game, when they do die, they never lose their own things, so what do they care? they don't. Thats the great thing about being a thief, nothing really effects you. Well this would, and something should.