Luigi Mangione indicted on murder and terror-related charges in UnitedHealthcare CEO killing
Luigi Mangione indicted on murder and terror-related charges in UnitedHealthcare CEO killing
The 26-year-old Ivy League grad charged with murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan sidewalk this month has been indicted by a grand jury in the case, the district attorney’s office announced Tuesday. Luigi Mangione is accused of first-degree murder, in furtherance of terrorism...
Previously the reporting on this did not have a political angle and so it was removed from Politics and correctly directed to News.
The charges related to terrorism now give this a political angle.
"Luigi Mangione is accused of first-degree murder, in furtherance of terrorism; second-degree murder, one count of which is charged as killing as an act of terrorism; criminal possession of a weapon and other crimes."
The terrorism statutes can be found here:
https://criminaldefense.1800nynylaw.com/ny-penal-law-490-25-crime-of-terrorism.html
"The act must be committed with the intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion."
Storming the capital or shooting dozens of children are not terrorism, but shooting a CEO who murders thousands is. Got it.
They're clearly trying to send a message to scare his supporters
206They’re clearly trying to send a message to scare his supporters
Yes, they are. By charging him as a terrorist, they are saying that anyone who supports him is supporting terrorism. I'm sure that someone somewhere is making very long lists of names of social media posters and people who donated to his legal defense.
22
Self defence, not guilty
136Justifiable homicide.
48Nah. I have an out. Insurance CEOs simply aren't human. The charge should be animal cruelty at the worst. Luigi should get the same criminal penalty as someone would get for stepping on a cockroach. Murder requires the thing you're destroying to actually be a human being.
27That reminds me that you should never make the mistake of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison
5
Nullify the jury. A man can break the letter and spirit of the law if the jury decides he should not be punished for it.
7
Whatever. United Healthcare should be next for the countless murders they've done.
93We don’t put corporations on trial in America, silly billy
15I mean... we CAN... it just doesn't happen often enough.
Off the top of my head:
Enron:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Kenneth_Lay_and_Jeffrey_Skilling
Trump Org:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_business_fraud_lawsuit_against_the_Trump_Organization
6
"The act must be committed with the intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion."
These CEOs are quite literally trying to kill us for profit. This is class warfare, and they are the aggressor. They are not civilians, and the terror is not directed at the population or the government.
76In fairness, I think you could argue the second half. But I would have to read the manifesto to see if he actualy intended that, or if it is just the rest of us who wish he had..
7I tend to agree with that, the intent isn't to make the general public afraid, it's to coerce them into taking action.
5
So the jury has their out now, jury nullification on the grounds of the act not being terrorism
67nope. not that one.
there's two charges, only one with 'terrorism' attached.
20Are insurance CEOs really human? Is it even possible to commit murder against one? I think it would be more like killing a flesh-eating parasite. I'm thinking the charge should be animal cruelty at the worst. What kind of criminal penalty would I get if I threw an ant farm in a lake? That's the kind of punishment Luigi should get.
151st & 2nd degree both have the terrorism angle attached.
3
Jury nullification does not require "grounds". Jury nullification is a result of the jury's verdict being final regardless of the details of the trial. It's also an effect of the fact that you cannot be tried twice for the same crime. The jury is not required to form a verdict strictly on the basis of the trial. The may find the defendant not guilty regardless of actual guilt.
5Yeah I'm pretty sure they'll somehow end up with a jury comprised entirely of CEO's or their immediate family, "randomly" selected of course
2
Terror?
Come the fuck on,
FedsNew York. Absolutely fucking not. This sparked joy, not terror, in the populace. This was, to be quite frank, the exact opposite of terrorism.65It's not the Feds, it's the state of New York.
15This is like saying a wife killing their abusive husband is an act of terror. Clearly she's saying she's not taking the abuse anymore and any man or woman that treats her so poorly would meet a similar end. The perp that killed UnitedHealthcare's CEO and those cheering him on are saying the same thing -- enough abuse. We're all terrorists because we want CEOs that do real harm to their customers to be held accountable? The current system is completely ill-equipped to even do so much as shame these abusers (i.e. libel and slander laws).
10It sparked terror in the people that actually matter, the ruling class.
8It also makes light of actual terrorists. Perhaps they aren't all bad after all.
7This is the best argument against the terrorism charges. Should we have a fucking parade to show how NOT terrorized we feel?
4
Terrorism to bring this to first-degree is very much a stretch in my eyes. The poor civilian CEO population are spooked by one person getting shot.
58It makes it harder to prosecute, at least?
14They aren't dropping the second degree murder charge, so they don't necessarily have to meet the higher bar that this sets.
That said, while they probably want to be able to paint him as a terrorist, that necessarily involves a more detailed look at what he was trying to accomplish, and that might just backfire on the prosecution. It only takes one sympathetic juror to block a guilty verdict.
18
The second part of the statue, to cause government action, does seem kind of appropriate. But I highly doubt he thought he could pull that off and it's going to take a lot more 2nd player characters to get there.
4
Okay, so next time just make it look random. Got it.
40Manifesto? No sir!
7By the time we have a large enough sample set to definitively prove the killings aren't random, a lot of progress will have been made.
4Once again statistics proves its power.
2
So by saying terror, they admit that there is something to be fixed by policy of a government
37"One Man’s Terrorist is Another Man’s Freedom Fighter"
34Post bills every-fucking-where about Jury Nullification.
33Well… guess the family won’t get life insurance now that it’s called a terrorist attack 🤣
29New Yorkers and Pennsylvania residents need to show up to their jury duty summons and get your ass on a trial... You never know whose trial you'll end up on. Don't say nullification during the interview!
25"The act must be committed with the intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion."
I have no issue with the state correctly identifying this act as terrorism. I take great issue with the fact that this act is being defined as terrorism, while using a definition that clearly defines many things that get a pass as terrorism. Remember last Trump presidency, when his white house published an old-school violent videogames scare video to garner support for his policies while distracting from discussion on gun laws? An act committed with the intent to coerce a civilian population is terrorism.
And let's be real, I picked a low-stakes, innoculous example just to make a point: the state does a LOT to terrorize it's citizens. But when they do it, it's "law and order." When Luigi fights back in self defense? "Terrorism".
25Trump's gonna pardon the J6 terrorists. That tells you everything.
3
The act must be committed with the intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion
No, see, that's clearly false. The civilian population did not get intimidated or coerced by fuck and all, and the government wasn't threatened.
So, nope. Not guilty.
23I think what the state is trying to say is that only corporate executives are people.
9The government is run by corporatism, so maybe? But as for the public, this is most solidarity we've seen from US citizens in a while. We weren't the target, nor did we feel like we were. We were Spartacus.
7For a moment, I thought "hmm. What if we all said 'No, I shot Brian Thompson'" sort of like what happened in Spartacus, but then I remembered that all 6000 slaves or whatnot were executed
3
This guy is going to get a standing ovation when he enters the courtroom.
22Hopefully not from the jury box. They better play their cards close to the chest.
4
You can tell the corpos are really upset when the government they own brings out the T word.
22One person getting shot is not terrorism.
15A lot of very incontrovertible terrorism was in the form of a single very public murder. The difference was that it was against vulnerable groups and the murderers were rarely charged.
3A lot of people consider murdering an abortion doctor to be terrorism. Or lynching an innocent black person... why would this be different?
Assassination in furtherance of an agenda...
0
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
13"The act must be committed with the intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion."
So it's fine if you use large sums of money but someone goes with the more democratic route of using a gun and suddenly it's not cool
12The real offense was being poor.
2That's the funny thing, he wasn't poor at all. His family is fabulously wealthy. We don't know how much access to that money he had, but he was able to get two degrees from a very expensive school then move to Honolulu and join an intentional community while not having a job. Then disappear for months while not having a job.
I think he had no intention of getting away with it. The ideal way to do this would be acting like he planned nothing, don't disappear, then go visit an old friend somewhere who would give an alibi. Instead he's hanging out in bumfuck Pennsylvania with the murder weapon and fake ID.
2
New York Penal Law § 490.25, the crime of terrorism, is one of the most serious criminal offenses in New York State. The statute defines the crime of terrorism as any act that is committed with the intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion and that results in one or more of the following: (a) the commission of a specified offense, (b) the causing of a specified injury or death, (c) the causing of mass destruction or widespread contamination, or (d) the disruption of essential infrastructure.
6As happy as it made everyone with a brain: That was definitely the legal definition of terrorism (if he did it).
From a quick google, criminal possession of a weapon is because NY has laws against ghost guns (3d printed firearms).
Don't get the logic on both first and second degree for blapping the same guy though.
5Eh. I really don't consider insurance CEOs to be human. If you so thoroughly abandon your own humanity, why should we even legally consider you a human being anymore? As such, I would argue that it's no more possible to murder an insurance CEO than it's possible to murder a cardboard box. Hell, at least a cardboard box does some minimal good for the world. Frankly, Thompson's doing more good for the world as worm food than he ever did as a CEO. I consider the worms feeding on Thompson to be more human than Thompson himself. Does Thompson technically have a family? Sure, but so do the worms.
7Throw the book, see what sticks. First degree in NY is very narrow IIRC.
5