By how much would we have to expand the judicial system - nd at what cost - to pose a threat of death comparable to the risk inherent in the illegal trade where violence is the means of dispute resolution?
You've got it backwards. We don't have to expand it at all, we have to contract it back to it's original purpose and methodology.
Assassin Giuseppe Zangara, an Italian immigrant with a ferocious hatred for politicians, strikes a defiant pose in a Miami jail. He was executed two weeks after the death of Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, who he killed intending to shoot Franklin Roosevelt.