Every crime can be punished by death in Arch-Conservative society, regardless of its severity -- if you get convicted. If you're playing on Nightmare mode (or have dragged the game out and the laws backslid into C+ territory), that's why.
Racketeering is a crime used in the real world against mafia bosses and other organized crime leaders, investors, and conspirators. It's designed to convict people who engage in organized crime but don't directly carry out the crimes, or who could be charged with conspiracy but would be hard to convict, or who could only be sentenced for a relatively short amount of time given the evidence collected against them. It's a powerful charge because it carries a heavy sentence (20 years in prison in the real world) and doesn't require that the person charged be directly connected to any one specific crime carried out by the organization. They can even be a mere investor that knows almost nothing about the day-to-day criminal activities, as long as they keep reinvesting their ill-gotten gains in the criminal organization. In short, racketeering is a legal sledgehammer for breaking up the higher ranks of organized crime.
In LCS, racketeering is used in a similar manner. It's the scary charge you get when a recruiter is ratted out by a subordinate. It's the way the government can get to an otherwise squeaky clean LCS founder, and is why it pays to be careful about who reports directly to important people you want to protect. You can prevent ratting out by rescuing people from the police lock-up before the interrogation is finished, or by ensuring the people captured have high heart, low wisdom, and plenty of juice. In Arch-Conservative society (as in Nightmare mode), interrogations are very violent and are much more likely to break your Liberals.