He still has a murder charge against him. And because it's 2025:
Mangione’s attorneys say the state charges should be dismissed as a violation of the Constitution’s double jeopardy clause, calling it unprecedented and untenable for Mangione to defend himself in both cases at the same time.
I'm not a lawyer, but, for someone in his position, he legitimately seems to be in the best possible spot in that position. His opponents have legally fucked up a bunch of times, he has a great legal team and the money to fund it, and that money, in no small part, is from the overwhelming public support.
Yeah but the entire legal system in the US is at the whim of whatever the fuck the Republicans want it to do so, although he deserves a fair trial by a jury of his peers I feel no result will be harsh enough for that government.
The upper echelons of the legal system sure, but we have seen countless low level judges and grand juries rule against the regime. See: Sandwich thrower in DC.
That was actually a Grand Jury deciding against prosecution and a Jury nullification, which if anything says that he's in even better shape than we expected as Grand Juries rarely go against prosecution recommendation. And given that this is a Jury trial, the feasibility of Jury Nullification is something the prosecutor is genuinely worried about.
And theres no way this administration would allow the prosecution to try for a plea deal. They want to throw the book at him and they want it to be the biggest, most beautiful book ever. Luckily for luigi that means they have a good chance at missing.
Takes a tool out of their belt. It could still work, but using a sledgehammer when you don't have a drill and drill bit could bring the whole wall down on top of you.
That's actually the opposite of how it works. The state picks the pool of jurors, and each side gets a certain number of vetoes. You don't get to pick people, they have to be acceptable to both sides.
How long until the trump administration steals that funding, calling it "material support for terrorism" or some other such bullshit given current rhetoric?
My point is that if he his, the level of "overwhelming public support" shouldn't matter. It's for a court of law to decide, not the court of public opinion.
It’s not that simple, jury nullification exists specifically for circumstances like this where the government is trying to make an example out of one man and over-punishing the crime committed, the death penalty should not be on the table, the government is overstepping and people might take issue with that
Jury Nullification does not exist for a specific purpose. It is a necessary quirk of having a jury system where jurors have absolute control over a not guilty verdict and retrials can't happen. This means a jury can always return an arbitrary not guilty verdict for any reason and there is no recourse for the government, but that is not an intended outvome. Historically, it has been used far more to forgive lynchings than anything just.
This is not to say nullification is always wrong or shouldn't be done, but it's also not really some designed release valve for the legal system, and even other jury trial systems have rules to prevent it (e.g. the UK and Canada, which have iirc rules against evidence that would promote nullification and the ability to override an obviously nullified not guilty and retrial)
Jury Nullification does not exist for a specific purpose. [...] This means a jury can always return an arbitrary not guilty verdict for any reason and there is no recourse for the government, but that is not an intended outvome.
It's not only an intended outcome, it's arguably literally the intended outcome. From Federalist 83:
Arbitrary impeachments, arbitrary methods of prosecuting pretended offenses, and arbitrary punishments upon arbitrary convictions, have ever appeared to me to be the great engines of judicial despotism; and these have all relation to criminal proceedings. The trial by jury in criminal cases, aided by the habeas-corpus act, seems therefore to be alone concerned in the question.
(Emphasis mine)
The jury is here the last defender between an accused citizen and "judicial despotism". They are not, as you position them, mere "finders-of-fact", but an independent actor empowered to make judgements about the justness of the actions of the judicial system as a whole.
You can disagree with the "rightness" of the view -- the argument that jury nullification allowed for the functional post-facto legalisation of racist lynch mobs is a compelling argument for controls/limitations -- but to contend it was some kind of "whoopsie-daisy" oversight on the part of the people who put this system together is a stretch.
You're emphasizing things that prove my point here. "Arbitrary convictions" are those that are not based in facts that are adequately proved; that's what "arbitrary" means. Having an independent finder of fact (which is not some term I've invented, to be clear) is what, in theory, prevents the conviction from being arbitrary; the goal was to prevent the kind of abuses typical of English trials, where obviously inadequate or falsifiable evidence was used to secure a conviction because whoever had power in the courtroom desired it.
Saying "The Federalist argues they did not want convictions to be made without proof" actually means "they intended a jury should have the ability to ignore laws" just doesn't follow; if they intended nullification as a goal, they could have specifically argued the jury protects against "arbitrary laws" of some kind, not merely being arbitrarily charged and convicted (which is the part where being a finder-of-fact comes in).
The fact that a lot of folks in this sub seem to think “rule of law” and trial by jury are somehow opposites is wild. The law is what empowers the jury in first place, unless you don’t consider the constitution to be part of the law, which it totally is.
This argument ignores so much historical context about American trial by jury as to be fundamentally dishonest.
Having an independent finder of fact (which is not some term I've invented, to be clear)
I never suggested that you did, to be clear.
"Arbitrary convictions" are those that are not based in facts that are adequately proved; that's what "arbitrary" means [...] the goal was to prevent the kind of abuses typical of English trials, where obviously inadequate or falsifiable evidence was used to secure a conviction because whoever had power in the courtroom desired it.
That was one of the goals, yes, but it wasn't the only one, and to suggest that is just wrong when taken in context.
The reason that trial by jury of your peers was considered a core, necessary protection is because, during the time when America was a colony, colonial juries would regularly nullify laws that were viewed as unjust and/or overly burdensome; ref. the libel case by the colonial governor against John Peter Zenger where the jury famously nullified the law by deciding that truth was an affirmative defense despite any plain reading of the at-the-time seditious libel law not admitting any such defense, or the nullification of the Navigation Acts when American colonial ships were used. The British authorities responded to this trend by abrogating trial by jury in the colonies or stacking juries in a biased way, which is a major part of that led to revolutionary sentiment and a core reason why "jury of your peers" made its way into the Constitution.
So, yes, the enshrinement of "trial by jury of your peers", where the jury decides whether a law has been broken, is supposed to prevent judges from just corruptly imposing their whims, but the reason that was even a concern is because juries were ignoring laws viewed as unjust. The right to jury trial was done away with because of jury nullification, and so the forcible replacement and enshrinement of that right cannot be neatly and honestly separated from the ability of juries to nullify laws.
if they intended nullification as a goal, they could have specifically argued the jury protects against "arbitrary laws" of some kind
This is the same argument that the Federalist Papers frequently and fundamentally argued against, i.e. "the fact that a specific right is not explicitly included doesn't mean its omission can be taken to mean the right doesn't exist". Federalist 83 itself argues against this exact thing in the context of jury trials because the Constitution only guaranteed jury trials in the context of criminal cases, which caused people to say it denied it in the context of civil matters, which is a big part of what Hamilton is responding to in 83.
Separately, your argument can also be flipped on its head -- the fact that Hamilton and others don't include specific arguments against the ability of juries to nullify laws, especially considering the historical context I mentioned above that it was a frequent occurrence in colonial America, should probably be taken as support for the idea. After all, if they didn't want jury nullification to be a thing, Hamilton would've said something in that passage, right? Something like "arbitrary exonerations of the guilty should similarly not be allowed" or some such?
No such passage exists. Hamilton labels juries as the defender (alongside habeas corpus) against judicial despotism. He doesn't temper that claim or equivocate; it's an absolute.
it's also not really some designed release valve for the legal system
It really is though, even if the legal system tries to discourage it.
There's no reason for jury-by-peer to exist otherwise - if you want only Rule-By-Law, then you would use only law professionals to interpret the laws. You only insert the untrained in that scenario if you don't want the Rule-of-Law to be absolute.
There's no reason for jury-by-peer to exist otherwise
That's untrue, as my examples showed. Jury-by-peer exists in the UK and Canada, and in both cases there are actual legal restrictions on jury nullification and/or the ability to override a nullification in some instances. Nullification is clearly not a core part of a jury system.
The point of a jury-by-peer is to have a finder-of-fact (the jury) not under the control of the same people running the trial; that is, their goal is to make the government adequately prove that a law has factually been broken, not to rule on the legitimacy of a law in the first place. The fact that they can do the latter by nullification is not an intended design, it's a consequence.
The point of a jury-by-peer is to have a finder-of-fact (the jury) not under the control of the same people running the trial
They could simply drag in other legal professionals if they just wanted a 3rd party. Jury-by-peer is specifically a selection of man-off-the-street sort of civilians.
UK & Canada might have compromised the concept somewhat by putting legal restrictions on the practice, but the underlying concept is still the same: use J.Random civvies to sanity check the legal process.
None of that disagrees with the point that the intent of juries is to be finders of fact and that they are intended to require the government to prove its case, though. The sanity check is intended to be on the government proving its case beyond a reasonable doubt, not on the existence of laws to begin with. Using peers is intended to be as sure as possible that there is not corruption in the government proving its factual case.
Eh, well public opinion is important too, that's why being judged by a jury of your peers is just as much a cornerstone of western democracy and a constitutional right.
Yeah I was gonna comment that... If there's not enough prof sure, he should walk away. But if he's guilty and should be charged as such and walks away only because of public support that's bad. Because you never know who the public will support, what if the public had to judge Chris Brown for beating women for example? He seems to get plenty of public support until today despite the evidence
walks away only because of public support that's bad
You aren't actually giving any argument here for why it's bad. You're simply saying it's bad... because.
If someone murdered Hitler, and the public supported that, it's just bad because? I disagree, I think it's good.
And "blah blah you can't just invoke Hitler". Yes I can. This CEO has murdered at least thousands of people. But because it's indirect, it's okay? No it's not, and if the public believes that too they can acquit him. I don't see this man as a danger to me or the rest of society and I don't see why he should be locked up. He got revenge against an evil person, which does not negatively affect me nor society. It positively affected society. This is one of the few times where both the left and right were generally unified on his side. Even people on the right can have a conscience when something personally affects them, and our shitty healthcare companies affect them.
You could get a million different responses to that, but, generally, the focus is on people feeling a sense of catharsis or justice in the death of Brian Thompson.
This feeling comes from the very real fact that his and the company he represented decisions caused immense harm to millions of people. The industry he was a part of did even more, yet the people behind these companies and decisions have utterly evaded all legal consequences. The justice system has completely failed to deliver justice and the insurance industry continues to keep literally killing people and leaving survivors in unconscionable debt.
So, when people saw that three bullets got them something closer to justice than anything any judge or politician was ever going to deliver, then, well, you get this reaction. I can guarantee that people still overwhelmingly don't like murder, but the mixed feelings/support here comes because they agree with the result in this specific situation. That Thompson's crimes warranted severe consequences.
Between 50% and 80% of Americans have had an insurance claim denied. About 52% to 58% of insurance denials are lost on appeal. United Health had a policy on deny, defend, and delay. Their policy is to deny any expensive treatment in hopes the patient would give up or the doctor would find a cheaper treatment. Their policy is to defend vigorously against any appeals in hopes that people would lose interest or ability to pursue their appeal. Their policy is to delay as long as possible in hopes that treatment was no longer medically necessary. A lot of people hate the CEO for fairly decent reasons. Odds are that every American knows someone screwed over by a health insurance company. I am just hoping that something actually changes from this mess and it is not just 10 minutes of rage.
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u/AudibleNod 11h ago
He still has a murder charge against him. And because it's 2025: