Comment by pfannkuchen

No you are confused. People commit capital offenses for one of two reasons: either because they lack impulse control, or because they don’t think they will be caught.

If we fix the second one, we only have the first group. We can fix the second group, and the remaining first group, while it does apply to capital offenses in general, does not apply to violence against witnesses.

It seems like killing witnesses (after the fact, since witness protection does not intervene during the initial crime being witnessed to protect the witness mere moments after their witnessing) actually requires impulse control, because to do it you need to a) anticipate an abstract threat b) formulate a plan in advance c) carry out the plan. This is why it is typically executed in organized crime by bosses, and not by people engaging in random violence.

I’m not saying no one carries out capital offenses, I’m just saying that no one engages in witness directed violence due to lack of impulse control, they do it because they don’t think they will be caught, and more thorough rules enforcement does address that.

On witness protection making one’s criminal record secret. Okay? One can easily be opposed to that practice. How about we don’t make deals to hide relevant safety information from the public? It seems pretty easy to oppose. Just because the government does it, doesn’t mean it is a good reason. Are you defending the reason, or just stating what is? If you are just stating what is, I don’t see how that’s relevant.