This article studies the role of the criminal justice system in perpetuating impunity for political assassinations in Mexico by analyzing a wave of homicidal action against the leftist opposition party—Partido de la Revolucion Democratica (PRD)—throughout the 1988-2004 period. The Mexican case is interesting because hundreds of leftist political party militants often engaged in legal activities were gunned down by state agents (the police, the military, local politicians associated with the dominant party-state, the Institutional Revolutionary Party [PRI]) or indirectly by hired guns on behalf of state leaders. Using case studies collected by the Mexican National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), an official governmental body, it is argued that the Mexican state showed its acquiescence in the killings through the impunity that was afforded the killers through the further disarming of the legal coercive powers of the existing state to properly prosecute and punish murderers.
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