A lot of people on Lemmy seem to think it would be morally just to acquit this man, even if it can be proven he actually did murder the United Healthcare CEO, because said CEO was contributing to the deaths of many people by denying them essential medical treatments.
I think those lemmings have a deficient understanding or appreciation of the necessity for the rule of law. More likely, I think they’re just running on their own emotions, which is bad thinking.
If he is indeed guilty of the crime, what Mangione did is execute vigilante justice. While some might feel that what he did was justified, what’s not justified is the act of vigilante justice itself; that is, the decision to take the law into your own hands. That is morally wrong on its own and constitutes a major threat to society.
If he did it, he should absolutely not go free; no matter how much I or anyone else approves of the fate his target met, the fact of the matter is that he should have met that fate at the end of a fair trial, not an assassin’s bullet. If you open the door for vigilante justice in one case, you open it up in mall cases. It is categorically incompatible with any justice system.
a deficient understanding or appreciation of the necessity for the rule of law.
If the rule of law had been properly applied to restrain the powerful and wealthy, Luigi would have had no reason to PVP a CEO.
This would make sense if there was some semblance of the rule of law before. That clearly isn’t the case, so it’s not a useful theoretical to bring up.
Jury nullification is literally the entire reason to have juries composed of everyday citizens instead of legal professionals. The final safeguard against injustice is a jury’s ability to acquit regardless of the law.
I agree with you but to highlight how different people see that statement I just want to say that some people believe the jury is the final safeguard against courts victimizing people who didn’t commit crimes. And others believe that safeguard goes even to what can be considered a crime.
When the legal system is rigged to allow corporations to exploit and extort the average citizen this is the one of the few avenues we have left. If I kill a person, I go to jail. If a healthcare CEO generates record profits by denying care to people who have paid into the system, he’s protected from his actions by corporate law, and even rewarded with large sums of money.
I understand your point, but it’s based on the false assumption that we live in a just, single tiered justice system
I actually make the same point above. I’m just trying to explain alternate viewpoints of the same sentence here. The system is so broken the jury is our last line of defense in some of this stuff.
I’m not gonna bother reading all that nonsense, because only one thing matters in this, or any case. He is innocent until proven guilty. If the jury refuses to convict, then he is still innocent of any crime. That’s how things work, and how they have always worked.
I dunno, your argument is built on democracy and the rule of law being the arbiters of what is right. Democratic systems can be weak, and in the case of US healthcare democracy has failed. At that point, how can vigilante justice be wrong if it represents the will of the people?
I’d argue that the will of the people has no correlation with what is moral. The will of the people can be just as immoral as the will of an autocrat. Tyranny of the majority is no better than tyranny of the few when it’s your neck the boot presses down on.
Hm good point. How does that improve the problems with rule of law though
“Vigilante” justice is built into the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in the case of tyrants.
I’m all for having strong personal ideals, and a healthy respect for democracy and justice, but out subscribe to many illusions about our system that make your beliefs pretty idealist. Not that people who call what Luigi did “the will of the people” don’t, but there is a dearth of false consciousness to go around.
We don’t have democracy, justice, civility for all, we have it for a dwindling few. Luigi’s vigilantism is a sign of the utter failure of all the systems you note “should have” taken care of these things.
This is the problem with morality vs ethics. Morality doesn’t require one to understand their own beliefs, or worry about where they came from; only to follow them. What we call democracy is a form of class domination. We deserve more.
I think those lemmings have a deficient understanding or appreciation of the necessity for the rule of law.
When the necessity for the rule of law is extended to the president of the united states and our rising oligarch class, I’ll clutch my pearls about circumventing it for Luigi Mangione.
This is an eternal debate in a jury system. And while I respect your position I think you are wrong here. Strict adherence to the law works when the law works. However we have police officers who are functionally immune from prosecution; judges using medieval church law to restrict our rights; and laws protecting the right of the wealthy to kill us for profit. (Healthcare is only one example)
The system is broken and jury nullification is a moral response to that.
idk man he has about as much education of law enforcement as the policemen of america do. Way I see it, he was just doing a regular arrest of an industrial mass murderer, which went a bit wrong. Kinda like it happened to those black gentlemen. I think he should be made to resign from the force.
If the CEO was black, he would be free and receiving offers to appear on FOX.
A lot of people in France seem to think it would be morally just to support resistance fighters, even if it can be proven they actually did murder Nazis, because said Nazis were contributing to the deaths of many people by fighting for the German war machine and Nazism.
I think those French people have a deficient understanding or appreciation of the necessity for the rule of law. More likely, I think they’re just running on their own emotions, which is bad thinking.
If Nazis are indeed guilty of these crimes, what the resistance fighters did is execute vigilante justice. While some might feel that what they did was justified, what’s not justified is the act of vigilante justice itself; that is, the decision to take the law into your own hands. That is morally wrong on its own and constitutes a major threat to society.
If they did it, they should absolutely not go free; no matter how much I or anyone else approves of the fate their targets met, the fact of the matter is that they should have met that fate at the end of a fair trial, not a resistance fighter’s bullet. If you open the door for vigilante justice in one case, you open it up in all cases. It is categorically incompatible with any justice system.
Defense of others. He acted to prevent the deaths of millions at the hands of a monster.
He stopped a mass murderer
He didn’t though. UHC is still in operation along with the rest of the for-profit healthcare system. If anything, UHC has gotten even worse based on recent stories.
I wish he had done that, I do. I sympathize with why he did it.
But no matter how much people want this to be the case, you cannot assassinate your way out of capitalism. You simply can’t.
Yes he did. He stopped ONE mass murderer. On to the next….
No. He did not. He stopped someone helping to facilitate that murder who was easily replaced and the murder continued unabated, if not gotten worse.
Yet again, I sympathize with him. I wish this was anywhere near enough. People seem to think this will be the end of capitalist medicine and they will be waiting for that end to happen for a very long time under Trump.
Why people have the idea that Republicans are going to be like, “oh, you’re killing CEOs? We better give everyone free healthcare!” I don’t know. That does not jibe with the entire history of them and their policies. What they do is circle the wagons and double down. That should be obvious by now.
This is such a silly take… This is like saying killing a Nazi officer in World War 2 does zero good.
Sure, the Nazi’s could use the death of their officer to spin up propaganda, and do terrible things. But a dead Nazi is a dead Nazi.
In this case, a previously untouchable, evil elite was cut down on the public stage. He was an evil man that hid behind success at all costs as a vehicle to praise and validation… And some random nobody stood up and said “no, I don’t respect your success, you’re evil.” and shot him.
This isn’t how capitalism ends, it’s how justice and the end of invulnerable elites begins. This is how we end one of the most destructive societal values America still holds. Not with bullets, but with open, brutal contempt for those that reap rewards off the suffering of others.
look at you lefty, calling everyone you don’t like a Nazi again. don’t you know this is why people become Nazis? just because he was filling the trains to the death camps doesn’t make him a bad person, in fact he most likely grew up on a farm, so he’s actually a working class hero.
Poe’s Law, some people actually believe what you’re saying.
/s exists for a reason on the internet, where toneless text reigns supreme.
I need you to take a step back and realise in that comment you’re calling for open warfare in the USA against Republicans and independents.
If the Healthcare CEO is a nazi officer then the federal government is high command and the voters are the grunts.
You’re saving 0 lives with a civil war. Thats just begging for the start of World War 3.
you’re calling for open warfare in the USA against Republicans and independents.
Ok? I fail to see the issue, since they have already declared war on the working class.
If you’re attempting to know what Mangione’s intention was, the actual result is irrelevant. And what’s the probability that Mangione’s goal was the complete eradication of the capitalist system, or even causing UHC to shut down? Using propaganda of the deed to raise awareness that might lead to public pressure and/or regulatory chance, maybe.
Didn’t their stock value drop by tens of billions? I would say that’s something, awareness at the very least. But it’s just a beginning. Certainly his Intent was to prevent mass murder.
If their stocks drop they can still use the difference in buy and sale values to deduct taxable income, meaning it will always be worth roughly 37% to the CEOs even if it becomes near worthless.
Plus they can just buy it back and wait for a rebound if they want to. It doesnt affect their normal operation.
They probably loaned their own stocks out to short sell and made profits.
I agree. I think that was his intent. I just don’t think it was successful. Even if UHC loses value (and the value it lost was actually negligible compared to its revenue even though it sounds like a lot), how many other insurance companies are out there making money hand over fist?
I’m just wondering if, in a few years when insurance companies are still raising premiums and still denying dying people care that people are still going to act like this is all it takes.
I’m not attempting to know anything about him. The person I talked to said that he stopped a mass murderer. He didn’t because the mass murderer is UHC. He cut the toenail off a mass murderer and UHC is still around and doing exactly what they had been doing.
“Maybe possibly the serial killer will be stopped if we just make people aware they exist” is nonsense.
And I have no idea how people can live in a capitalist system all of their lives and not understand that everyone in a corporation is expendable, from top to bottom.
This has nothing to do with his motivations and everything to do with all the people thinking that somehow if enough CEOs are murdered, the Republican-dominated government will embrace socialism. It’s ridiculous.
Not with that attitude.
I would agree in the sense that Labor affects capitalism more than attrition. The machine can always replace a meatbag here and there, but something like a strike, or a mass payment freeze is much harder as that hits the bottom line.
Mobilizing the amount of people required though in today’s world would take something BIG to break through the constant noise and call people to action.
Except nothing stopped so thats a pretty shit defence.
Sounds like something a health care exec would say
idk it stopped a few of them from implementing some even worse shit for a few months
If you’re talking about Anthem’s anesthesia coverage, that reversal was announced before the assassination.
Another health insurance CEO gets murdered?
Haha! Don’t tease ;)
Wouldn’t solve anything.
I saw graffiti while driving in Seattle: KILL 3, WIN A PRIZE!
If Kyle Rittenhouse can walk free, so can Luigi. FREE LUIGI!
Technically Kyles gun was properly documented if not legally obtained, so Luigi’s homemade firearm is still a harder case to win.
It’s completely legal to make your own firearms. I have a few guns made from 80% lowers.
But you didn’t 3D print your lower like Luigi did. As I understand the lower is legally “the gun”.
For a pistol, it’s the fire control assy that’s “The gun”.
I milled the lower out of a block of aluminum. It’s 100% legal to make your own firearms in this country. Stop talking out of your ass about things you know nothing about.
Nope. I’m not who you replied to, but you’re misunderstanding.
When people talk about “80 percent” in this context, they mean the firearm. For an AR, it is the lower receiver. Whether it was 3D printed has no legal bearing, federally. I could carve one out of wood or styrofoam, or fashion one from modeling clay, it doesn’t change the law.
Federally, and in most states, it is legal (for anyone who is otherwise allowed to own guns) to manufacture a firearm. Period. No paperwork, no serial number, no background check. Nada. This is how the law currently works.
The media likes to refer to these as “ghost guns” because it sounds spooky.
In California and Connecticut, it needs a serial number permanently marked on it even as an 80% lower. 13 other States also have laws which touch on this.
It is my understanding that Mangione employed an 80% pistol, so it was likely a Glock-compatible copycat.
Luigi’s issue is the non NFA registered suppressor plus all those NY gun laws he broke (in addition to the homicide).
homicide*executionAnd to clarify I don’t normally believe in vigilante justice but these people removed themselves from the justice system so why should they be protected by it?
Homicide isn’t just a legal term. See also fratricide, sororicide, patricide, matricide, suicide, regicide, etc.
Not in NYS, unfortunately. To even touch a pistol, legally, you need a permit here. Even if you made it.
The only exception is black powder pistols, unless you have powder and shot as well.
Kyle also crossed state lines with said firearm explicitly looking for trouble.
Unfortunately we weren’t able to prove that, his defence stated his friend kept it for him.
Don’t get me wrong, Kyle should be in prison, but the two cases aren’t very similar.
Wasn’t he also a minor with a gun which is also illegal?
ya, but he killed animals, the only real people who suffered from that were the people who had to get replacements to do the menial animal work
The fuck is wrong with you
He could just get elected president
Why should we care if he does go free?
An unelected nobody probably did more to spark discussion of class issues than any politician (even Bernie, and I love Bernie) during our lifetimes. Hmm, I wonder why people like him.
We’ve been talking about healthcare coverage for decades, most of us stopped talking about luigi a month ago.
A young “properly raised” white man executes a controversial CEO representing one of the most controversial industries in our country (the world?) at a time of historical political strife and division and you think the outcome isn’t important?
What changed? UHC still operating, new leader is still a piece of shit.
Luigi threw his life away for nothing. All his rich boy education wasted.
Are you seriously this dense? Do you really not understand why this matters? Have you heard of Rodney King?
I was thinking about that first day after. That he could be our O.J. Our Rodney. To get payback on people who are untouchable.
No, I don’t and no, I haven’t. Luigi walking free or spending his life in prison are both meaningless outcomes for the vast majority of people.
Pick up a book
Take a look around the real world.
minewasbetter.gif
Every major decision in this country seems to end up going the way the wealthy want.
They definitely want this to have maximum punishment to deter copycats.
This will never happen. You won’t find a jury in the country that will unanimously give a not guilty verdict. Best case is a hung jury twice in a row leading to a mistrial. Worst case they find one of the loopholes that lets the judge decide or they unanimously declare him guilty.
They don’t worry about all the school shootings because their kids go to private school which is a big reason why nothing is done (24 private school shootings vs 392 public school shootings for the past 25 years or so.) The working class families are the victims, so nobody in power really cares beyond lip service.
Hey. That 24 vs 392 number, what’s the percentages? Like how many private schools VS public are we talking about?
Cause that number without context seems extremely misleading. Not trying to start shit. I just don’t know where you got those numbers or where I’d get the totals to compare.
Indeed, numbers on their own are meaningless. Based on this graph, private schools make up 10% of the enrollments. Public schools are 83% and charter schools make up the remaining 7%.
I have no idea where the charter schools are counted when it comes to school shootings though. If they are counted as public we get
Private: 24/10 = 2.4 shootings per percent of enrollment Public: 392/(83+7) = 4.36 shootings per percent of enrollmentand if they are counted as private we get
Private: 24/(10+7) = 1.41 shootings per percent of enrollment Public: 392/83 = 4.72 shootings per percent of enrollmentSo either way the public schools have more shootings by almost a factor 2 at least.
Cheers. Not as extreme as the bare numbers hint at, still a big difference.
I wonder why that is? Surely rich children have access to guns, (more than average access?) so is it the security at the school? Or is it mental health care? It is that being rich doesn’t make you as miserable and desperate as a kid? Hmmm.
They don’t suffer from economic instability, they have solid access to health care, and have a stable home.
They seem to think setting him free would be a bad thing.
?
No evidence linking him to the crime?
My question that I keep coming back to, but I have yet to hear answered:
Where is Luigi’s workshop?
I mean I’m pretty sure the evidence for his arrest was flimsy as fuck. As long as he has a competent lawyer (which he should have) he should be able to get the judge to throw out the case. I think.
The judge won’t throw it out. Career suicide. We’re looking at a jury trial unless he gets killed first.
I mean I’m pretty sure the evidence for his arrest was flimsy as fuck.
What makes you say that?
I mean he was arrested based on low-quality security camera pictures that barely, if at all, looked like him. And the evidence seemed too obvious unless he intended to be arrested. The officers who arrested him also said something like “I saw him and just knew it was him”, which does not inspire confidence. There’s a not insignificant chance the evidence they did “find” on him was planted.
By those standards, most convictions are based on evidence that’s “flimsy as fuck”.
What if that is true though? What if it’s even virtually guaranteed to be true, given the effort and time required to reasonably prove something like that combined with the limited resources given (and which we can afford to give) to the justice system to do so, and the sheer number of crimes to deal with?
Honestly, the more I hear about the number of cases of people being convicted falsely, or where it’s hard to tell if they truly were guilty, due to evidence being poor, or misconstrued, or based on faulty foresic science or known unreliable sources like eyewitness testimony, the more I worry that if called to serve on a jury I’d be effectively unable to do so, because I have come to doubt if the justice system is even capable of proving something beyond what I would consider to be a reasonable doubt.
I mean most convictions (I’d hope) are based on evidence that makes sense. I guess what I’m saying is: If we discount the possibility of intentional martyrdom, then it doesn’t make sense that someone would walk around with that much incriminating evidence right after committing a crime that would get the whole nation hot on their tail. Not saying he definitively didn’t do it, but I won’t discount the possibility of the contents of his bag being planted.
it doesn’t make sense that someone would walk around with that much incriminating evidence right after committing a crime
You vastly overestimate the intelligence of most people.
And they’re underestimating the laziness of investigators and prosecutors.
They really are.
It’s kind of scary.
I hope Luigi gets the jury nullification and walks free. But let’s not pretend that he’s falsly accused or was illegally detained/arrested.
The police can completely detain someone based only on a passing resemblance to a grainy security cam image of a suspect. They can detain someone off even a vague description or sketch. They only need reasonable suspicion to detain someone, and that is a very low bar.
In order to arrest, they need the higher standard of probable cause. They have to have some sort of evidence that leads them to believe that you have, are, or were about to commit a crime, or observe you in said commission of a crime. I don’t have all the details from the arrest, but it sounds like he was identified visually, yes, but also that he provided them the same fake id which was also used to check into the hostel in Manhattan where the security cam footage came from. That is enough to connect him to the crime and gain probable cause for the arrest. Actually, even independent of the shooting, providing false identification to the police during there investigation is itself an arrestable crime in Pennsylvania, too.
And even if you think that the evidence that was on his person at the McDonald’s in Pittsburgh was wholly or partially planted, it is not the only evidence they have. For example, they have a water bottle and protein bar wrapper found near the shooting that the shooter left behind. Both have Luigi’s fingerprints on them.
Luigi did it. That much seems apparent. Now whether that makes him “guilty”… that’s another question.
Do you have a source for your claim about the fingerprints? I recall that there was a bottle and a wrapper near the scene of the shooting that may have been left by the shooter, but this is the first I’m hearing about fingerprints.
I also don’t understand how tying someone to the hostel would tie them to the crime. We saw the hostel security images during the manhunt, but those images didn’t look like an obvious match to the security footage of the shooting. The eyebrows looked different and we really couldn’t see much of the shooters face for comparison. Maybe the police have evidence that establishes a string connection between flirty hostel checkin guy and the shooter, but i have not seen it.
I’m not saying that it wasn’t him. But I have not seen enough evidence to say that Luigi did it…
There are a surprising number of people who are absolutely convinced that he’s not the killer through some sort of police coverup or something. It really doesn’t make sense to me. Fuck the police, but if he isn’t the real killer, the real killer could just repeat what they did and the whole thing would be exposed.
To be clear, we have no idea what evidence they have, except for what has been sworn to under oath. And that evidence may or may not be reliable.
Don’t assume any press release contained any facts.
There is some flat-earther level of denial going on with Luigi supporters.
I guess I was wrong then. Gotta thank Cunningham’s law.
I mean, they caught Timothy McVeigh because of a missing license plate. It’s not unusual to get caught over something that’d have been otherwise insignificant.
I mean, they caught Timothy McVeigh because of a missing license plate
Or there may have been some parallel construction going on.
The public does not know the evidence against him, yet. The prosecution has that under lock and key. We only know the relatively small handful of photos that surfaced in the media, and we don’t even know if the prosecution will use those.
Watching carefully here, and I have my own personal opinion and hope for the trial outcome will be, but let’s not hyperbolically jump to “we know what the evidence is” (or isn’t)
Wasn’t the evidence the things they found in his bag? The gun and manifesto?
If I remember right, his lawyer is primo. She is one of the best.
We need to release him so he can work on Elon next.
Imagine if they had held a trial for the people who cut off the heads of the royalty and the court in France.
Technically, yes, it’s murder. But it was the only way out for the vast population to earn their feeedom from their oppressors. Because this is a response and legitimate defence against the institutionalized violence that the population had been facing.
They weave and dodge all accountability, demonstrating how untouchable they are by anything other than outright violence.
Removed by mod
Not guilty
Mistrial on the grounds of fuck all this stupid bullshit
Which is still true if they can prove he did it.
Was there ever a legal fund set up? It’s interesting, but not surprising, that there’s been almost no further coverage of this.
There was GoFundMe, but his lawyer apparently said that no legal defense donations will be accepted, so no idea what happened with all the money donated.
It’s interesting, but not surprising, that there’s been almost no further coverage of this.
But it’s really not. Don’t forget that most major news sources are owned by super rich white men and/or conglomerates who will shut down any info getting out on Luigi’s status … because in stopping info they shut down remembering, and we’ll forget about Luigi under the avalanche of Trump-based news that is currently dominating everything.
For sure. That’s why I said it’s not surprising.
