Luigi Mangione pleads not guilty to murdering healthcare CEO

You’ve got far right militias blowing up America’s electric grid infrastructure, threatening politicians, having standoffs on federal property, and patrolling hurricane impacted areas trying to capture federal employees that are there helping, and I’ve never heard those people referred to as terrorists.

Yeah, the rules of society say they won and they think all the losers beneath them just have to accept it. The social order and status quo are great for them. That something would violate it is extremely disturbing to them and provokes an emotional response.

I think that's why they seem to be so clumsily overreacting to the murder. Maybe it's working in segments of the population I don't see, but everyone in my social network is either outright happy it happened or at least get why it happened. Some will have perfunctory "murder is wrong" statements, but the thrust is about what a corrupt and evil business health insurance is. That's all the way up to the boomers and crosses political boundaries.

Things like the perp walk, excessive charges, and corporate comedy pretending everyone just thinks Mangione is a bad guy just highlights the us vs. them of class war rather than trying to somehow quell or redirect the bubbling unrest. I think they're doing this because their peers and masters are emotionally demanding a visible and recognizable show of power and obedience. If they knew what was good for them they'd be triple-timing it to make some token effort to reform the system, but even a token effort in response to the killing of a rich person would infuriate them, so clumsy performances it is.

What about the domestic terrorist corporations who assassinate whistleblowers? Or are there so many hands involved there that it’s not worth the trouble to dismantle those terrorist organizations?

Did he care about the domestic violent extremism before it started to affect the wealthy?

No, not at all. They're only mad because for the first time, the elite feel mortal.

You ever heard of the "less dead", well, Brian Thompson is "more dead"

And for those who haven't "Less Dead" is a saying used to describe people who's deaths the police don't look into because they're "not important enough"

Many serial killers get away with their crimes simply because they're smart enough to only kill those who would be deemed "less dead"

What about them? They just got their picks elected as the next president and dipshit-in-chief.

If someone would say this shit on the news in real time, I might actually watch it. But it's all so scripted and tame I can't bring myself to care.

Mayorkas said white nationalists are the biggest threat to domestic security. He was impeached by Nazis. He doesn't repeat bullshit about immigration. Not necessarily a standard asshole that fails upwards.

Of course it was him. That doesn't mean from a legal perspective he is best served by pleading guilty. Pleading not guilty also means he'll get a jury trial and his lawyers can introduce evidence that embarrasses private health insurance providers, or proves his state of mind, or otherwise casts doubt.

I tend to think it's because they charged him as a terrorist. I assume it's a different law in which case he might be able to prove it's not terrorism.

Innocent until proven guilty. It's the government's job to prove him guilty. He doesn't have to help them.

Wouldn’t be surprised if he was in New York on some legitimate business, they caught him on camera at a Starbucks near the murder, blasted his image all over the news and social media, and just waited for someone to call.

Then when they got the call, they grabbed a backpack with “evidence” and claimed he had it on him when they arrested him.

Did anyone believe that he was wondering around for 3 days with a bag that was holding the murder weapon, fake IDs, and a hand written manifesto? He ditched another bag, and escaped on an e-bike. Why would he then run around for three days with the rest of the evidence.

That’s now how it works: In the US “justice”-system there are only extremely limited cases where it makes sense to plead guilty, because it pretty much just means that you skip the trial and get sentenced directly. Especially if you want Jury-nullification, you have to plead non-guilty so that the Jury can find you innocent despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Personally, I am sad that is all it takes for you to believe something. Businesses, media, governments, and more are trying to make people believe things (unrelated to luigi) that aren't true. You need to raise the bar, not lower it. Maybe you want to believe he didn't do it, but I hope you don't actually believe that based on so little information.

I mean, if he can away with it while not undermining his original intentions, why not do it?

There's various ways he could go unpunished that would prevent a retrial and so he'd then be set up to be influential in some kind of healthcare reform.

Heavy on the cope though.

That doesn't explain why he keeps mogging the camera, or what he yells to the journalist in that one video.

I don't know if it's him, but I think whoever it is, is just following their lawyer's advice, not trying to be a martyr

Maybe if it happens enough, we can normalize billionaire CEO murder as well.

Sandy hook was instead normalized, and happens multiple times over across the nation annually. Pew pew ‘muricuh

This is the disheartening part that highlights the class divide. Shootings of common folk barely make the news where I'm from. How much have taxpayers paid for this so far? Justice clearly isn't being applied equally.

The terrorism charge is absolutely the dumbest thing they did. Now it's on them to prove it was more than just murder.

The evidence against him appears to be that the guy who murdered the CEO might have similar eyebrows to Luigi Mangione, but it's hard to tell from the security video. There's nothing else that puts him at the scene. They can say it's him all they want, but they'll have to reveal some better evidence if they want us to believe it.

If you're going to court for any criminal charge, you plead not guilty. The DA is going to have laid the strongest charges they believe they can get a conviction on, but there is always risk in going to trial. The prosecution generally cares a lot more about getting a conviction than what charge that conviction is on, or what penalty that conviction carries.

So. You're caught dead to rights, charged with a crime. If you plead guilty, you are also waiving your right to trial, and taking whatever conviction and (probably) penalty the prosecution advises the judge.

On the other hand, if you plead not guilty, now you have the opportunity to accept a plea deal from the prosecution - changing your plea to guilty - which would include what charge and what penalty. Depending on what you've done, this can save you a lot of money, reduce or eliminate probation or incarceration time, or take the death penalty off the table.

You can always change your plea from not guilty to guilty. You can't do that the other way around. Whenever you see headlines about "So-and-so pleads not guilty," that doesn't (in most cases) mean they intend to beat the charge. It's just what you do.

Guilty or not, always plead not guilty at the start. You'll often have a chance to accept a better plea deal before trial if you want. Or you can go to trial.

Unless you are looking forward to serving time (free food, warm bed, access to healthcare).

Plead not guilty, then wait for jury nullification. This is the way.

Yeah, the absurd terrorism charges are probably possible to beat, so no reason to plead guilty to them. They are probably not questioning the murder charges, but that's beside the point.

What's the downside exactly? Pleading guilty doesn't really come with any upside especially if they're putting the death penalty on the table.