In December, Luigi Mangione was arrested for shooting health insurance executive Brian Thompson. Last week, Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, announced that she was seeking the death penalty. It’s a highly unusual announcement, since Mangione hasn’t even been indicted yet on a federal level. (He has been indicted in Manhattan.) By intervening in this high-profile case, the Trump administration has made clear that it believes that CEOs are especially important people whose deaths need to be swiftly and mercilessly avenged.
I think the death penalty being on the table would increase the likelihood of the jury finding a reasonable doubt or jury nullification. It would only hurt the prosecution imo.
OR it’s going to prejudice the jury against him, like it usually does.
When capital punishment is on the table, only people who are in favor of it are selected for the jury, and people who are in favor of state murder are MUCH more likely to return a guilty verdict than people who aren’t.
That’s one of hundreds of reasons why civilized legal systems don’t murder prisoners anymore.
Why the fuck does the prosecution have the ability to put punishments on the table that are known to bias jury selection?
Because the system itself is rigged in favor of the prosecution by design.
Doesn’t the defense have just as much say in terms of who gets selected out and which signals are used to parse that
Not really, no.
AFAIK, the defense and the prosecution get the same number of “just because it’s bad for my side” exclusions, but not being inclined to render a guilty verdict if there’s a possibility of the death penalty is an automatic exclusion that doesn’t count towards the prosecution’s “freebies”.
So yeah, the moment death penalty is on the table, the jury will be biased AND the defense will be much more likely to consider a plea deal for a lesser punishment, further stacking the deck in favor of the prosecution winning one way or the other regardless of actual guilt.
Oh, shit! I’d really appreciate a source for that, if you have it handy
Didn’t have it handy, but didn’t take long to find this from Penn State, this from Cornell, and this from the US Office of Justice Programs that the DOGE kakistocracy has apparently not found yet…
Thank you!
You’re very welcome 🙂
Yup. One of the main reasons people oppose the death penalty is because of the proven record of innocent people receiving death sentences. Approximately 4% of people who receive death sentences are actually innocent. We execute many innocent people in this country. The system absolutely does not operate on the principle of “it is better for 1000 guilty to go free than for one innocent to be unjustly punished.”
Many oppose the death penalty because they realize just how poor our justice system is at actually determining guilt and innocence. Those who assume it is near-infallible will be much more likely to support the death penalty. So if you screen out those opposed to death sentences, you also screen out people who are more skeptical of the criminal justice system overall.
I kind of agree, if I were in the jury, it would make me think twice about finding them guilty since I would feel like I have someone’s death on my hands.
Yeah but you’d be automatically excluded from jury duty if you admitted that. It’s like nullification.
Yep, if you set the bar extraordinarily high, then you have to jump extraordinarily high. Bondi’s likely doing more harm than good for her cause.
Assuming his trial is carried out normally and isn’t a sham
This ☝️
Why does it feel like the trump administration would use Mangione’s acquittal by jury as a reason to try to attack and do away with the 6th Amendment (trial by jury amendment)?
Luckily it would be really hard for them to actually get rid of it. I wouldn’t put it past them to try to start doing summary executions or just illegally trying to detain people without trial or whatever but there’s 0 chance they get the support to actually remove that amendment.
They’re just going to skip the courts altogether like they’ve been doing.
The tact taken by this administration isn’t trying to amend the Constitution, its to simply ignore it. There are three branches of government in the USA. trump’s Executive branch and the Legislative appear to be in nearly lock-step in ignoring the Constitution and their duties to uphold it. The Supreme Court has capitulated in almost every action trump’s Executive has asked, with only minor pushback. The recent 9-0 Supreme Court decision requiring the trump administration to return of Ábrego García to the USA is the first real pushback we’ve seen. So far trump is continuing to ignore the return requirement.
In other words, the Constitution is worthless if the bodies in power charged with its defense choose to simply break their oath of office and not defend it.
they blocked the corpse pile at cecot on apple maps but what about the other satellite photo providers?
My worry is that trump is thinking of sending him to CECOT.
Trump always starts with the “worst” criminals as he knows it’s hard for Democrats or others to object since they don’t want to be “on the side of criminals,” but it won’t end there.
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I didn’t realize muscle was so flabby
There’s no way this jury is going to be allowed to find him innocent much less jury nullification. If they can’t be bribed they’ll be threatened.
The bullets Mangione used to kill Thomson had “deny,” “delay,” and “depose” inscribed on them.
Allegedly. The reporter forgot to be professional for a moment.
“Forgot”
The reporters can always seem to sane-wash Trump and his ilk, and always give them the benefit of the doubt, but not Mangione. Musk gave a salute that was “awkward” and “looked similar to” a Nazi salute, but Mangione is just presumed guilty. Trump is a “successful businessman” despite bankrupting numerous companies, but Mangione is assumed to be a guilty evil murderer before he’s even indicted!
I’m glad they’re seeking the death penalty.
Because it makes it much easier for the defence team to argue that the prosecution is trying to turn the law into a spectacle, and that Luigi should be acquitted of all charges.
The federal system gives the judge a lot more power, they can basically pick the jury and evidence themselves, and appeals really, really suck.
It doesn’t much matter if it’s easier for the defense to argue that. It matters what the judge and jury find.
He should run for office
Well, we have a convicted felon and rapist as president already.
Exactly. They’ve set a precedent that running for office gets you out of any consequences. I really want to see what happens if Mangione runs for congress
None of this, of course, is to say that what Mangione did was justifiable or wise.
Um, fuck you? He hasn’t been convicted and the author’s assumption here, that Mangione is guilty of what he has been accused of, is part of the fucking problem.
Damn, when did Jacobin get soft?
Eat your local CEO
Californians would die of heart attack after eating all of them
At least then they could afford to have a heart attack. Heck, have two
It’s BOGO!
after they first died of state mandated cancer
ok but killing a millionaire is defensible
Not because they’re a millionaire. Because they’re a CEO whose policies directly resulted in unnecessary suffering and death.
Billionaires do deserve to die for being billionaires though.
You can’t amass that type of wealth without being responsible for human suffering en masse. It’s impossible.
yeah I think this distinction is important. we don’t need to kill the working professionals who saved money and invested wisely throughout their careers. many of those people will eventually be millionaires, but like, ones of millions.
once you get to hundreds of millions it starts to look like there was no possible moral way to arrive at that.
Agreed, its a bit like self defense or defending others.
If you are armed and see a murder about to happen you CAN legally intervene with a firearm. You do not have to standby and let someone get killed.
UHC was killing thousands and apparently the government was/is fine with it. Thus … it was a defensive killing.
This discussion would get me banned off of Reddit (again).
My favorite Reddit alt got disappeared because the degree of subtlety with which I conducted my advocacy for political violence dipped once by accident below the acceptable threshold. So I’m here. Hah!
So what are the odds of jury nullification on this case?
He’s a real true America hero and a patriot! Que Viva Luigi!
We live in a post-defensibility society.
Sigh. Yet another article assuming Mangione’s guilt. Ben Burgis didn’t even bother to say ‘allegedly’ anywhere.
I mean, it’s somewhat defensible, right? He did kill someone, so isn’t it symmetric if he gets killed? You can obviously make an argument against this but isn’t the tone of the article written to make it seem like this is just laughable, when it’s really not?
I’m sick of these hyperbolic headlines just to capture clicks.
The state killing its own citizens is never morally defensible.
It’s even more egregious when political influence tries to exert pressure on the legal process in an effort to prejudice that verdict.
He’d became a martyr. The best chance way the ruling class could handle this is letting him go on the condition that he denies every publicity possible for a given years, even “just” imprisonment would communicate “we fear guys like this”.
It’s very naive of people to think that in an authoritarian dictatorship controlled by the world’s wealthiest people, that there won’t be a LOT of unjust deaths in the coming years.
I will be positively shocked if they don’t make a very public example of Mangione. It’s going to hurt and that’s what they want. They want to kill him in front of us so we feel pain. Then they’re going to do it again and again with other people whom we don’t want to see die. Remember that. This is what happens.
This is what 45% of eligible voters thought would never happen so they stayed home. Too much trouble. Too hard to figure out the truth (by googling for 30 seconds). Too many excuses to not rock the boat, and now the boat is rocking us all out.
I’ll defend it:
He traveled to murder a guy he never met before after stalking him online, carved words from a manifesto into bullet casings, engineered a 3D printable unregistered firearm, fled the scene of the crime with enough cash to live off of for years, and openly denies any wrongdoing by pleading innocent. He is absolutely likely to try it again, or perhaps worse, if released.
If the death penalty exists, and honestly I don’t think it should, then it should apply fairly and treat all human life equally.
He is currently innocent of all of those charges.
We don’t get to pick and choose when innocent before proven guilty gets applied. Openly stating that they’re seeking the death penalty before he’s even been indicted is weird and wrong.
Nobody is talking about taking him out back and shooting him. They’re discussing if the maximum punishment for the crime if and when found guilty should include death.
No, they’re not.
They’re not discussing what the appropriate penalties should be—which, by the way, is typically done at the end of a trial during the sentencing phase, after all evidence has been presented and a guilty verdict has been delivered, because punishment is supposed to be reflective of the evidence presented—they’re saying that they’ve already decided that the target penalty is death.
That’s a clear nod that they want to make an example, a concept divorced from justice.
Well this case absolutely looks like any other murder charge doesn’t it? And to touch on your other comment, it’s just as fair for everyone. The search for the suspect was like any other, the treatment with the media was like any other, and the federal government is holding back from intervening in a state case to poison the already tainted public before a jury can be formed just like any other case. Right?
Nothing has been proven, and there is no defense for how this person is being treated even IF he did do what is alleged. This country was founded on this principle.
He is absolutely likely to try it again if released.
Welcome to down votes, where you fail to see that they are being extra hard on him because he shot one of the surface dwellers. The difference is his alleged motivations which were to kill someone that has been actively engaging in spreading human misery for profit. In a practical sense, he allegedly killed a mass murderer that was for some reason never charged with a crime.
Oh boohoo the murderer is getting prosecuted thats so mean.
I remember back in the day in history class we’d discuss if murdering a tyrant is morally wrong and how it should be treated by the law. The class pretty much agreed if you 360 quick tomahawk someone who causes millions of deaths it’s fair game.
I’m so ashamed of myself for failing the litmus test created by a bunch of 15 year olds. /s
He is absolutely likely to try it again, or perhaps worse, if released.
That would justify the life penalty (if proven), it exists for a reason.
Nothing justifies the death penalty, really.
True, it’s barbarism, plain and simple.
In what world does someone on the run carry a fuck load of cash, versus stashing it at a destination? Also you need to read the police reports, they fucked up big time, they had to search his backpack 3 fucking times before finding the supposed murder weapon, a back pack, 3 times. Think about that. Oh yeah and the third time was out of site of all the body and stores cameras.
There is nothing fair about applying the death penalty for a man acting in defence of his country. That shit should be reserved for school shooters or republicans.
I mean, sure he went through a lot of effort, but I don’t think we should hold that against him.
After all, US soldiers goes through a lot of effort to kill people they’ve never met before.
All that effort is literally the criteria for murder in the third degree. It’s a worse crime than a crime of passion or negligence.
If the death penalty exists, and honestly I don’t think it should, then it should apply fairly and treat all human life equally.
So all premeditated murder should be punished by death? What do you mean when you say all human life should be treated equally?
If any are persecuted with the death penalty as an option then it should apply equally and fairly.
You shouldn’t be able to dodge sentences because you are the tankei/anarchist-equivalent to Markiplier internet celebrity status.
That will run into some issues in the long run. If one is willing to carry out a death penalty, they themselves have now murdered and should be subjected to the same fate. If not, then anyone who has murdered a murderer, should be given the rights the executioners get, to avoid those penalties. No issue is cut and dry or black and white. And absolutely, we should be well past death penalties.
Well then that’s easy, just use firing squads and then you won’t know who killed him.
No, anyone who is willing to kill another human, signs up to do so, and is part of a mob who does, is in the same boat.
Womp Womp guess you’ll have to write a letter about it.
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It most of that is them saying it. And they lie all the time. I don’t believe much of it, and I think I need more untampered evidence showing it was him. I’m rooting for the innocent scapegoat.
