Luigi Mangione pleads not guilty to federal charges in CEO killing
Luigi Mangione pleads not guilty to federal charges in CEO killing

Luigi Mangione pleads not guilty to federal charges in CEO killing

Luigi Mangione is accused of stalking United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and shooting him to death on Dec. 4, 2024.
Solidarity aside, whenever you are arraigned, any lawyer worth their salt will advise you to plead not guilty, because entering a guilty plea means it's over, move on to sentencing, where you have no leverage at all.
You can always change a not guilty plea to a guilty plea later, if a plea deal offered by the prosecution is acceptable to you. This is especially relevant in a case where the death penalty is on the table, but also applies to the possibility of reduced charges or penalties in any case.
I'll also add that this case could well end up with an Alford plea. In short, where the defendant asserts innocence, does not admit to the criminal act, but accepts the sentence because they believe that a jury would find them guilty based on the evidence. Again, this is definitely related to a case where the death penalty is on the table.
I'd be very disappointed in any jury who found him guilty
Having been on a jury,
People are dumb and have no empathy
Ideally, a jury's responsibility is to weigh the evidence and find whether the evidence supports a guilty verdict beyond a reasonable doubt.
There has been no jury selection yet, let alone presentation of evidence. I would guess that any jury nullification would depend on a defense tactic of "Yes, my client committed this act, and his motive was to prevent UHC from directly causing the deaths of their customers by refusing to honor legitimate claims or by delaying payment of claims." There might be something there, especially since UHC changed its stance on something (I forget exactly what right now) in the wake of their CEO being killed.
But that would be a really difficult defense to mount. You'd basically be admitting to the act and hoping that at least one person on the jury would A) agree with your defense, and B) be willing to hold out over it, and C) not be replaced by an alternate for "failure to follow jury instructions" or some such thing.
Again, since a jury has not even been selected, I won't speculate on what evidence gets presented and what evidence (if any) ends up being excluded. By extension, I cannot agree with your above comment.
Please note that I am also not saying "He's guilty, he should hang", because that would also entail speculating on evidence.
Realistically they'll try arrange one that will. They're going to try secure a guilty verdict by any means necessary to make an example out of him.
In federal Court the judge has a lot more control in the composition of the jury., they even lead voir dire.
They can pick a jury of all ceos if they want.
The problem is he definitely killed the guy. In a sane world the defense would walk in, state directly to the jury "jury nullification is a thing", and that would be the end of it.
They have engineered a system where the only recourse the common man has is violence, and I have no qualms about saying this CEO, like many others, deserved to die.
Why? It's not even a question of if it was him. And it's not even a question of whether he killed the guy.
He is a murderer whether you agree with why he did it or not.
Because of this fact a lot of courts will just automatically enter a not guilty plea during your first appearance now.