Well, if you're on the third strike, you might as well kill the witness instead let him go, as it does not increase your sentence, but decreases your chance of

Well, if you're on the third strike, you might as well kill the witness instead let him go, as it does not increase your sentence, but decreases your chance of being caught. Of course, it's not the law that's solely responsible for crazy high crime rates compared to other civilized countries, nevertheless some practices used in US legal system can give a lot of incentive to minor offenders to do things they otherwise wouldn't.