Letters or marque are a little different, because your citizens are largely going to be hunting non-citizens. Though there are a lot of similarities. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but it is kind of weird for a basically unlicensed untrained person (some states have serious licensing requirements for bounty hunters, most don’t) to be empowered to go get somebody and haul them to court with no real paperwork or extradition or anything.
It may be atypical, but I would hardly count it as bizarre.
Won’t he be judged guilty/innocent by twelve unlicensed, untrained persons? (Heck, they won’t even let you on a jury if you have any kind of legal training!) Personally, I’d be much more worried about regular old Joe Schmoe deciding whether I get life in prison than being the one to apprehend me and bring me in.
Most countries have a bounty system whether or not they allow professional bounty hunters. The only difference is that others rely strictly on happenstance (random citizen calling into a tipline) whereas ours allows intelligent detective work and (maybe) citizen’s arrest to go alongside.
I view it as a very positive move in favoring a responsible citizenship over a busybody government. In fact, I would say that citizens should always be the first recourse, and government the second.