^^
assasinate
But how is terminating someone “with extreme prejudice” different from just terminating someone?
I’ve always thought it was shorthand for “Terminate the operations of this person.” That is, make him stop what he’s doing. (i.e., terminate one’s command.) “Terminate woth extreme prejudice” means to not only make him stop doing what he’s doing, but to make him stop being.
Terminating them could just be stopping them from doing what they’re doing. If your pre-judgement is so extreme that you’ve already decided they’ll start doing whatever they were doing before you stopped them after you stop stopping them, why then if you kill them, they really can’t start up again!
Simple, eh? 
I don’t get the “prejudice” part. What does prejudice mean in that context?
The term derives from that used when terminating someone from employment. To terminate "without prejudice " means that the employee is not necessarily barred from re-applying or re-hiring in the future. Conversely, terminating “with prejudice” is the end of that employee’s relationship with that company.
Terminating “with extreme prejudice” is the end of that employee’s relationship with that company, any other company, and any other person.
It’s an idiom, not a logical linguistic construct. It’s been around in popular usage since, I think, the late’60s or early '70s. I’ll see if I can find an origin.
I believe it started from the movie Apocalypse Now.
I’ve always heard it as originally a CIA euphemism. It’s designed to mean “kill” without using the actual language. I’d also be very surprised if people were using it in the context of employment, except extremely ironically. It certainly did not start out that way.
Earlier than Apocalypse Now (1979). Here’s a cite going back to 1973: http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/19/messages/914.html
A quick and dirty search indicates you’re probably right, Dog80.
Whoops! Didn’t see QtM’s response before I posted. Several sites do cite Apocalypse Now.
“Terminate with extreme prejudice” was used in Apocalypse Now, by the CO giving the protagonist the assasination mission. I have no idea whether this was the first usage of the phrase, but it is definitely one of the most well-known.
I surmise that the meaning of “extreme prejudice” is to be prejudicial in selecting which enemy to terminate, in the extreme. In a typical engagement, you might be told which enemies are acceptable targets, and which types of targets or which divisions you should attack prejudicially. In the extreme, this would be prejudice down to a particular individual.
In other words, the phrase is a deliberately absurd military euphamism for assasinate.
And here’s a cite going back to 1970: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/Summaries/V49I1P30-1.htm
From Commentary Magazine.
Vol. 49 • January 1970 • No. 1
This site requires registration, but somehow I bypassed that by cutting and then pasting the info it did put up. That got me the whole article. I can’t guarantee it’ll show the same passage to others, but the above is what I found there.
Fred Shapiro of Yale Univ. , a rather brilliant antedater over at the American Dialect Society, found a 1969 cite in the N.Y. Times
So, CIA.
And, as a side note, if Fred found it, it’s probably the earliest cite out there. He posted that in March of this year.
Note that “terminate without prejudice” and “terminate with prejudice” are terms you see an awful lot in contracts of various sorts (try reading a few - I dare you). I presume, idiom aside, that these mean to end a contract without or with (respectively, natch) any prejudice toward the possibility of entering future contracts.
To terminate with “extreme prejudice”, then, would be to preclude the possibility of future contracts by the simple fact that dead people don’t sign on the dotted line.
In law, if a suit is discontinued or dismissed “without prejudice”, it means the same suit (or another suit covering the same claims) can be refiled later.
If the suit is discontinued or dismissed “with prejudice”, the plaintiff is prohibited from filing another suit covering the same claims.
As it was explained to me, the prejudice means that the target has been pre-judged to require killing. In many combat theaters containing civilians, soldiers would be required to use some judgement in deciding who to kill. In the case of an assassination mission, the target has been designated so even if the assassin finds him peacefully minding his own business, they still execute him.
"Attention…the use of excessive violence in terminating the target…
…has been approved. " 