The Call to Execute Luigi Mangione Is Indefensible
The Call to Execute Luigi Mangione Is Indefensible
Donald Trump’s attorney general Pam Bondi’s call for Luigi Mangione to receive the death penalty is a dangerous political intervention in support of the indefensible.
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.
Yessss....show us you fear.....we feed on it.
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?
Sigh. Yet another article assuming Mangione's guilt. Ben Burgis didn't even bother to say 'allegedly' anywhere.
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.
The truth is, Luigi will be an exceptional martyr. The majority of deaths will be forgotten by the masses, because a million deaths is a statistic.
The key in the coming years is to survive, organize, strategize, and recover. Dying is a waste. We must all do what it takes to live and fight from a better position.
Our saving grace is the incompetency of the enemy. They are following plans created decades ago by aging and dying villains. The inheritors are inept and despicable.
Hitler shot himself and Mousolini was ripped to pieces because they overplayed their hands. Keep in touch with a local community, and figure out a way forward once our enemy is vulnerable.
Sadly I think he's going to be a martyr like Alexi Navalny. The 1% is patient, and they know they can distract us and grind us down. We can raise hell for a moment, but they know our weakness is our stomaches.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)?
they blocked the corpse pile at cecot on apple maps but what about the other satellite photo providers?
They won't "do away with it" in any official way, but they've already stopped obeying it.
My worry is that trump is thinking of sending him to CECOT.
Trump and his sycophants are really really dumb. Like, really. All they have is muscle. Zero brains.
I didn't realize muscle was so flabby
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.
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
This guy killed a patrician and now that class has totally seized controlled of government.
Prove he killed someone.
we're not real big on justice at the moment...
Supposedly
He’s a real true America hero and a patriot! Que Viva Luigi!
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.
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).
He didn’t do it.
They’re pinning some rich guy bullshit on him.
Brian Thompson was stepping out in his wife.
She hired a hitman from El Salvador to kill him so she could have all his stuff.
Luigi is just some kid swept up in police railroading.
Luigi is innocent.
if you have evidence you should send it to the court
That sounds like a thing they’ll let happen
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.
Did he?
I'm completely serious, I have legitimate doubts about if Luigi is the adjuster. Everything about the arrest and (apparently illegally) collected evidence is extremely skechy.
After almost a week, the guy who escaped NYC cleanly (while leaving a backpack full of monopoly money in central park and signed bullet casings at the scene) is carrying around a signed confession and the murder weapon at McDonald's?
There's literally no other evidence than what they allegedly found on his person. The guy doesn't look that much like the person/people in the videos, the way they found him (an old man reporting to a cashier that a person with only their eyes visible looked like the shooter from the security cams) is sketchy as hell, and the evidence is straight up out of a police wet dream about the perfect arrest
This guy deserves a trial, like everyone does. The state apparently has no case against him at this point too
So why does every conversation start with assuming he did it?
No. You are fundamentally incorrect in that HE HAS NOT BEEN FOUND GUILTY FOR KILLING ANYONE AT ALL AT THIS TIME. You, talking "past" the conclusion as if it is foregone--just like the fascists are, are part of the problem.
I'm sick of dipshits like YOU skipping over due process.
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.
You're calling him guilty. He hasn't even been tried yet. You've let these hyperbolic headlines make up your mind for you and convince you of a verdict. That's exactly what Bondi and this article is trying to do, think for you. Forget the click. You've already given them what they want.
The issue is that he's only been indicted in New York, and New York abolished the death penalty more than twenty years ago.
The Feds would need to press their own charges if they wanted to pursue the death penalty, which they have not done yet. That's the laughable part: they're trying to dictate sentencing before they pressed charges, gathered evidence, or secured a conviction. And the only way to get a death sentence is by unanimous jury vote during sentencing, which, let's be honest, is going to be very difficult to get rid Luigi.
We live in a post-defensibility society.
Your observation about the timing of Bondi's call for the death penalty—before a federal indictment—is particularly sharp and highlights the political dimensions effectively. From experience observing these processes, such early, high-profile interventions are indeed rare and often signal broader political messaging, like the implied valuation of the victim's status you discuss. It's a crucial perspective on how justice can intersect with politics in high-profile cases.