I'm not a lawyer but ... things may differ state to state, and locale to locale. There have been lots of movies made in which a sort of frontier justice prevails, or maybe that isn't the right term ... but a particular jurisdiction does things the way it wants to. I once met a woman who got away with shooting her husband and his lover in her and her husband's bed. Well, she might have done a little time. She was white and her husband black; think the lover was white. Not sure if the respective races had anything to do with it, but this was in Louisiana.
I was thinking possibly that the wanted poster of Mud was something of a fake, so that the phone number on it went directly to King, unbeknownst to people such as the hospital worker. I did feel the hospital worker was perhaps being a little too diligent in ratting on King but perhaps it was better if the call didn't go to the cops, otherwise Mud might have ended up in jail where he would really be a sitting duck.
I do agree that as King was left standing, I was especially worried for Mud and Tom when they raised their heads as they went out to sea. How did Mud survive being under water as long as he was, and how did Tom find him? The other thing is ... will Mud never be prosecuted? He killed a man who might not necessarily have deserved to die. Hmph ... maybe a sequel is in someone's mind. I'd like to see that little Ellis in four years' time. Bet May Pearl will wish she had been a lot nicer to him.
To speak to your original question, though ... Tom being an elite vet, I think he would have carried more weight in court than King if the court was fair. However, Tom was too smart to wait around to find out, thank goodness for Mud.
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