Death and Deterrence: The Dangerous Spectacle of State Vengeance

 Luigi Mangione, Capital Punishment, and the Misguided Pursuit of Justice in a Broken System

In a rare and inflammatory announcement, Trump-era Attorney General Pam Bondi revealed last week that she is seeking the death penalty for Luigi Mangione—the man arrested in December for fatally shooting health insurance executive Brian Thompson. The announcement has sent legal experts into a flurry of concern, not only because Mangione has not yet been federally indicted but also because of the highly political optics of such a demand.

Though Mangione faces state-level charges in Manhattan, Bondi’s early call for capital punishment signals a deeper ideological move: the Trump administration’s willingness to elevate corporate elites to a protected class whose deaths demand swift and absolute vengeance.

Symbols of Rage: A System Under Fire

Investigators say the bullets used in the attack bore the words “deny,” “delay,” and “depose”—a symbolic indictment of an insurance industry accused of profiting from the pain and desperation of millions. While Mangione’s actions have not garnered wide public approval—only 17% of Americans support his actions—a striking 41% of respondents aged 18 to 29 expressed some degree of approval or sympathy.

This generational divide reveals a growing frustration. One in six Americans admits they stay in jobs solely to keep their health insurance, even as claim denials and delays plague both the insured and uninsured. Tens of millions go without coverage entirely. For many, the health system is not just dysfunctional—it’s inhumane.

Still, as the Midtown Times Editorial Board firmly states, rage cannot justify murder. History offers countless examples of so-called “propaganda of the deed”—individual acts of political violence meant to spark revolution—failing to achieve meaningful systemic change. Assassins may achieve martyrdom or notoriety, but governments often exploit their actions to justify suppression rather than reform.

Capital Punishment: A Cruel Illusion

Bondi’s call for execution highlights another flawed and immoral institution: the death penalty. Its defenders often claim it serves as a deterrent, a necessary evil to prevent future crimes. Yet research and real-world comparisons between jurisdictions with and without capital punishment consistently show no evidence that it reduces homicide rates.

The argument that executions “warn” potential criminals is often likened to the function of lighthouses—unseen preventions. But this analogy fails when we consider the actual evidence. If we maintained lighthouses only on the East Coast and removed them from the West Coast, we’d quickly see the impact in shipwreck statistics. The same logic applies to comparing death penalty and non-death penalty regions.

What we do know is that capital punishment does not deter crime, but it does perpetuate cycles of violence and injustice. As Karl Marx wrote in the New-York Daily Tribune, the state glorifying execution only masks the economic and social systems that breed crime. Instead of changing those systems, society celebrates the “hangman.”

Justice or Retribution?

The moral framework supporting the death penalty rests on retribution—an outdated and ethically shaky concept of justice rooted in “an eye for an eye.” While philosophers like Immanuel Kant and G.W.F. Hegel once justified capital punishment as a moral necessity, Marx sharply critiqued their logic as little more than a transcendental endorsement of societal brutality.

Killing in self-defense or the chaos of war may be justifiable under moral or legal scrutiny. But executing a person in cold blood—after due process has confined and neutralized them—is not justice. It is state-sanctioned vengeance.

Modern liberal democracies recognize this distinction, which is why most developed nations have abolished the death penalty. The states that persist in its use often have weak protections for civil liberties and low regard for human rights.

The Editorial Position: A Line in the Sand

The Midtown Times Editorial Board affirms that this is not a complicated issue. While criminal justice reform may require nuance and careful navigation, the death penalty does not. It is a relic of brutality, a tool of spectacle, and a moral failure at every level.

Pam Bondi’s political posturing around Luigi Mangione’s trial should alarm every American concerned with the integrity of our justice system. Let the courts do their work without interference. And let us not respond to violence with more violence under the guise of justice.