Painful Illustration of Judicial Ineffectiveness

Last year, only 28 percent of those arrested in Mexico on federal crimes, which includes most organized crime-related offenses, wound up going to trial. The remaining the 72 out of 100 were released before facing a judge for lack of evidence. This is a useful counterpoint to anyone who says that Mexico's principal law-enforcement problem is lack of firepower. It has tens of thousands of Federal Police armed like infantrymen out on the streets, but if they can't build cases that stick, they're not an effective law-enforcement agency.