Criminal was almost shot -- does it matter? (2,4)
I believe the answer is:
so what
'does it matter?' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'criminal was almost shot' is the wordplay.
'criminal' indicates an anagram.
'almost' means to remove the last letter (most of the word but not all of it).
'was' with its last letter taken away is 'wa'.
'wa'+'shot'='washot'
'washot' with letters rearranged gives 'SO WHAT'.
(Other definitions for so what that I've seen before include "I'm not interested" , "Does it matter?" , "I don't care" , "I couldn't care less" , "Big deal!" .)