My reaction to the editors’ of the Washington Post’s complaint about “Luigi Mangione copycats” was that, if a legal system were specifically designed not to deter would-be criminals, it could not achieve that objective much better than our present system.
To act as a deterrent a criminal justice system must be timely and sure not severe. Ours fails on all counts. In many jurisdictions, clearance rates for serious crimes remain low, and repeat arrests before adjudication are common. In practice many criminals are either never arrested or arrested and released dozens or even hundreds of times without ever being tried much less convicted. According to Pew Research only 2% of federal criminal defendants go to trial and most have been arrested before. Once arrested weeks, months, or even years may elapse before a trial and, even if a conviction results, the crime may have been pled down to something much more minor than the original charge.
There are modern systems, Japan’s for example, where the probability of apprehension and resolution is high, and that appears to have deterrent effects. The point isn’t to import their system wholesale but to note what they get right: certainty.
Luigi Mangione was arrested in December 2024. He should have been tried and, if the evidence against him supported it, convicted more than a year ago. The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees a right to a speedy trial. That should cut both ways. Neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys should be able to prolong the process indefinitely.
I agree wholeheartedly. The delays can be serious issues for the guilty or the innocent. For the guilty, they are often released to commit crime again creating new victims. For the innocent, some are held a long time awaiting their day in court. This happened to a Tennessee woman who was held because an AI facial recognition program incorrectly identified her. The police in Fargo, North Dakota, issued an extradition warrant. She spent about six months in jail awaiting extradition. She was finally moved to Fargo where she was released after a few hours. This was the first time she had ever been to North Dakota.
https://www.wsmv.com/2026/03/31/east-tn-grandmother-mistakenly-jailed-months-after-ai-identified-her-bank-fraud-suspect-north-dakota/
How do we fix it? Is it just adding more courts to process everyone faster?
I’m afraid it’s more complicated than that. Delay is a time-hallowed defense tactic. Keep delaying until the prosecution tires and plea bargains.