Reply to 1.
In my opinion I don't believe it would work.
While Alignment is a matter of perception, and they were wrong in the situation, smite evil wouldn't work unless they truly were evil in alignment.
Now I would shift them one step towards evil, or shift whoever had initiated the action one step. Unless that put them at evil, it would not work.
Alignment normally appears as a sort of aura to a person, and just doing one evil act doesn't make you an instant evil aura. Unless of course your somehow NG person enjoyed doing that evil act and therefore shifting them to True Neutral.
Just my Opinion, though.
I agree with Yorick, doing an evil act doesn't automaticly "make" you evil. So the smite doesn't work.
I do have to say that I don't know if there are any official rulings about changing aliments.
I think they'd have to do more evil acts, and they'd have to want to do more evil acts to shift towards evil.
Ps. don't shift your characters to easily, your players probably chose theire aligment for a reason.
First, in direct answer to your question, detect evil picks up a character with active evil intent. Smite Evil has no such clause. So no Smiting unless you want to actually change their alignments or the rules.
Second, be very hesitant about ever imposing alignment changes on your PCs, especially without telling them in advance. It's very subjective, very contentious, and it's very difficult to pull off without seeming like you are just trying to make your players feel guilty. If you do it, it needs to be done considering intent and motivations, not just actions. The method that I have found works best is "Hey, [player], your character seems to be leaning towards [alignment] lately, have you noticed that?" at which point they will often either change their alignment themselves because they hadn't noticed, or give you insight into their character that explains their actions. If not, then I give them an explanation of why, in the moral system of my game, what they are doing fits a different alignment better, and warn them that if they keep acting this way I will change their alignment.
Third, legal and moral authority are not the same thing, and so the legal system is not inherently good-aligned. If you want opposing it to be an inherently evil act, then you have to do the hard work of making it good aligned. That means fair trials, good treatment of prisoners, non-lethal damage apprehending them, etc.
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Sounds like the dwarf has committed an evil act (and it isn't the first). I'd shift his alignment once now (CN) and tell him if he wants his original alignment back, he can pay for an atonement (e.g. a strong warning). If he kills the paladin shift him again (CE). But for the poor paladin, it'll be too late for him to Smite...
CG means the 'ends justify the means' but 'getting back to the dungeon' doesn't sound like a good end in and of itself.
Sounds like the dwarf has committed an evil act (and it isn't the first). I'd shift his alignment once now (CN) and tell him if he wants his original alignment back, he can pay for an atonement (e.g. a strong warning). If he kills the paladin shift him again (CE). But for the poor paladin, it'll be too late for him to Smite...
CG means the 'ends justify the means' but 'getting back to the dungeon' doesn't sound like a good end in and of itself.
i was in a group that had a LN dwarf that constantly played LE intil the dm changed his alignment for him. the player went along with it. then a couple of sessons later, the mod we were playing had us encounter a large group of CG outsiders who took one look at said dwarf and said he had one chance. dwarf rolled a 1 on his bluff that he would be "good" and they (the outsiders) splatered him all over the caveren...
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i was in a group that had a LN dwarf that constantly played LE intil the dm changed his alignment for him. the player went along with it. then a couple of sessons later, the mod we were playing had us encounter a large group of CG outsiders who took one look at said dwarf and said he had one chance. dwarf rolled a 1 on his bluff that he would be "good" and they (the outsiders) splatered him all over the caveren...
That's so Metal....
Unless you have a disruptive player, an alignment change should be a voluntary player decision. Alignment change should be a good thing! It means the character is developing.
For in-game solving, does the dwarf have any deity? And if so, of what algiment?
I dont tell my players what aligntment there PCs have. There is a magic item that will help you stay on the narrow Road. My current GM does it the same way.
If it have ingame effects then i will let the in game stuff happend and make a RP situation out of it.
And if a player gets angry about a ruling i make, we will talk about it like grown ups, or Call each other names and throw dices:)
Edit but aligntment is not a very present part of ouer games.
Our "chaotic good" dwarf has shown a propensity for using lethal force for his convenience. A 14 year old commoner attacked our barbarian who had murdered his father some years ago (the barbarian has since seen the error of his pillaging and is trying to atone through his adventuring.) The barbarian attempted to disarm the boy (who attacked the entire group solo with no armor), and our dwarf responded by one-shotting the poor kid with a power attack. The player INTENT was that he wanted to get back to the dungeon and didn't want to have the barbarian talking with the youth delaying him.
Sounds like an evil character and a bored player. You can probably solve both problems by resolving the bored part. Talk to the dwarf player and let him know that your group wants to RP at times, which is just as important as the battles in the game.
If you shift the PC's alignment, you'll just have a disgruntled player. Your best bet is to deal with this as an Out Of Character situation. Unless the player is mature and when you begin discussing this with him, he explains that he's trying to take his character on a darker path (doubt it - sounds like he's just not RPing), then trying to solve the issue with in-game penalties won't help.