Summary
Luigi Mangione, accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is set to appear in a New York courtroom Friday for a hearing on evidence exchange and a potential trial date.
He faces state murder charges with a terrorism enhancement, carrying a life sentence without parole.
Mangione also faces federal charges, including one with a potential death penalty, and separate charges in Pennsylvania. His defense claims political bias in the case.
In a statement, Mangione thanked supporters for their letters from across the country and the world.
Terrorism, according to the United Nations General Assembly:
Luigi certainly didn’t bring the public into a state of terror, if anything quite the opposite - so I suppose the real question is do we class Health Insurance Executives politically as a group of people to incite terror onto?
I’d argue that a group of people who would happily sign away someone’s life if it meant them getting richer don’t deserve that kind of recognition, but I’d bet the courts will say yes because their rich friends want an example made of him.
A group such as healthcare CEOs, and the wealthy in general?
Not that I think he did it. But terrorism doesn’t have to be directed at the public at large.
New York state terrorism law is this:
https://ypdcrime.com/penal.law/article490.php#p490.25
Unfortunately, I think there’s an argument that insurance parasites count as a civilian population
However, it’s not at all clear to me that Mr. Mangione may have intended to intimidate or coerce the entire population is health care CEOs with his alleged actions. There’s a decent-looking alternative theory of this case that he may have been just pissed with the one guy.
These facts will have to explored at trial if the state wants to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt
If he even committed the alleged act at all 🤷
Yup. It’s a pretty open category so legally it’s valid … which sucks. :/
The CEO was not a billionaire. So it’s not billionaires as a group.
That comes down to a question of what unit of government was the murder trying to influence. His target was pretty clearly United Healthcare itself, not any part of the government.
Corporations are people here and they see this as terrorism because their managers do.
Whether a jury will sign off on the Citizens United view of the public as corporate citizens depends on how willing avg jurists are to rationalize the fiction.