A former prosecutor has said he has never seen so much sympathy for a person accused of murder.
  • Kalysta@lemm.ee
    61·
    6 days ago

    It’s like asking us to feel bad that Osama Bin Laden was killed. Or that Charles Manson died. Why are they trying to generate sympathy for a serial killer? Deciding on who does and doesn’t get health care makes you just as much a murderer as Mangione. So why should I care?

  • stoy@lemmy.zip
    4342·
    8 days ago

    He has the right to be judged by a jury of his peers, and it appears as if his peers agree with his actions.

    • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
      2581·
      8 days ago

      “As this man’s peers, you must be the judge of his actions.”

      “Ok”

      “Wait, not like that”

      • orcrist@lemm.ee
        62·
        8 days ago

        Yup. The article mentions that the prosecutors have a problem, but the U.S. people certainly don’t.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8312·
      8 days ago

      “Friedman Agnifilo would ask potential jurors where they reside in Manhattan and where they get their news sources from to determine their political leanings,” Kerwick said.

      I mean, he is from a wealthy family, but there’s still not going to be many working class people in Manhattan.

      I think people are expecting too much from the jury.

      It’s going to be a bunch of insanely wealthy people who will 100% want to remind everyone the rich are untouchable

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
      209·
      8 days ago

      agree with

      I’d accept ‘excuse’ his actions. I’m firmly of the belief that pain caused the shooter to lose grip of the “hey don’t kill people” to where “yeah maybe just this scumbag” seemed okay. And while we wanna kill evil people, vigilante justice is less about them and more about us. And I don’t like that us that is willing to kill people outside of the Justice system we built and maintain.

      I’m okay with supporting Luigi (if it was him ;-) ) get through this break with reality that was engineered by shitbag HMOs, accepting that a person died (terrible as he was, still a person who could have been rehabilitated), accepting that it was an insanity of a kind, and getting Luigi any help he needs, medical or mental, to get back up to a productive and fulfilling life.

      As in, let’s not ruin Luigi completely, as already one fixable human is dead so lets not kill another.

      • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        46·
        8 days ago

        And I don’t like that us that is willing to kill people outside of the Justice system we built and maintain.

        I think this is the disconnect. I don’t believe I have any (even 1/330 million) input into what the justice system is. When the Supreme Court is being openly bribed and stacked through legislative malfeasance, and as a result are taking away rights that a majority of the country supports, and yet nothing happens in response, it’s not our system. The very fact that there was a massive manhunt for this particular killer while others get ignored and he now has a federal murder charge because he was on a cell phone or planned it in another state or some bullshit is demonstration that this isn’t a system built to pursue justice equally. Neither the justice system nor the health system that provoked this reaction is based on codifying the broad cultural consent about “how things should work”.

      • sepi@piefed.socialEnglish
        22·
        8 days ago

        Maybe he’s guilty of manslaughter in my book. Murder? I don’t see it.

      • cm0002@lemmy.world
        1404·
        8 days ago

        It was clarified that talking about Jury Nullification in the context of future crime is a no-no because it’s a no-no in the country lw is based. But in the context of already committed crime it’s fine.

        So “Go ahead and commit the crime and we’ll do jury nullification!” Is bad, but “Crime was committed, but we sympathize with the motive/person/whatever so let’s do jury nullification !” Is OK

        • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
          786·
          8 days ago

          The whole thing sounded to me like a smokescreen for, “We fucked up, and we shouldn’t have banned talking about it in the first place. We talked about it and banning it was a bad decision that we briefly doubled down on.”

          Credit to them for reversing themselves, I guess. That said, coming up with contrived explanations for why you never made a mistake in the first place, because you’re always right, is one of the telltale signs of being full of shit. You can just tell people the main explanation. They’ll actually respect you more, not less, if you don’t engineer your reasonings to maintain this Wizard of Oz veneer.

          • curbstickle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            331·
            8 days ago

            The whole thing sounded to me like a smokescreen for, “We fucked up, and we shouldn’t have banned talking about it in the first place. We talked about it and banning it was a bad decision that we briefly doubled down on.”

            I mean… Yeah.

              • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                2·
                7 days ago

                If discussing commiting a future crime on your hardware it can be seized as evidence I imagine. If people discuss an already committed crime I suppose they know the discussion isnt evidence as the person believed to be the angel is already in custody.

          • nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            3810·
            8 days ago

            Lemmy world should have lost all credibility after they hard commited to the bias bot against the majorities wishes, but even on the fediverse people just don’t want to move instances. Im starting to think centralization is far from the only issue with social medias today, probably still the biggest, but by a lot smaller margins than I used to think.

            • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
              311·
              8 days ago

              I think they did, to be honest. I’ve abandoned most of the LW communities and I think I’m not the only one. There’s enough inertia in the system that I’m sure they will still be a big instance, but the reputational impacts of things like that are often permanent.

              To me, the big thing about the bias bot wasn’t the enforcing of the bias bot, it was the lying. If they had come out and said, “The bot is useful for moderation, we’re keeping it even if people don’t like it,” I don’t think it would have been any kind of big deal. What causes people to have this really unhappy reaction is telling them, “People love the bot! The minority who doesn’t like it is just mounting a pressure campaign” or “You just don’t understand the issues involved like we do” or “We’re fighting misinformation!” or “The admins are making me keep the bot” “No we’re not, the moderators want to keep the bot” or deflecting into this conversation about the cost of accessing the MBFC API or whatever other totally weird irrelevant issue.

              The !news@lemmy.world moderators were the ones who asked their users, got the answer that people didn’t like the bot, and took it away. It doesn’t have to be complicated. That’s why I’m still subscribed to !news@lemmy.world when I’ve abandoned the other LW news communities, and I’ve noticed that my Lemmy browsing experience has been remarkably free of weird bad-moderation bullshit ever since. There are no friendly conversations between jordanlund and UniversalMonk. I haven’t had articles I’ve posted get removed for totally frivolous reasons. There are no bots that every user hates and every moderator insists has to be there. It’s just news! Good stuff.

              • AhismaMiasma@lemm.ee
                52·
                7 days ago

                Tinfoil hat time, I think MBFC bot was the smokescreen for a GroundNews sponsor/ad.

                The bot started up at the same time GN started a massive ad campaign sponsoring a lot of YouTubers (~7 months ago). MBFC was the bias checker and GN was the hot new “good” source included in every single post. I bet Rooki or someone was getting checks.

            • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              15·
              8 days ago

              Lemmy world should have lost all credibility after they hard commited to the bias bot against the majorities wishes

              Hard agree!

              but even on the fediverse people just don’t want to move instances

              Soft disagree. I took a long time to do it, but I moved from .world because of the whole “being the r/politics of Lemmy” thing.

              You won’t find a more wretched hive of scum and Neoliberalism than the .world admins and mods anywhere outside of the aforementioned subreddit and the DNC itself.

          • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
            215·
            8 days ago

            The world admins have a long history of this kind of shit.

            A great example was when they updated the TOS to remove specific call outs for (if memory serves) transphobic hate being against TOS and instead replacing it with very generic text. The response being that they didn’t need that text because the generic call outs covered it.

            Nobody with two brain cells was fooled and everyone knew it was about getting ahead of angry chuds who might be mean to the admins. But enough people were mysteriously banned for horrible shit (with their whole post histories being wiped) and everyone else who cared left for different instances.

            I’m not going to fault admins for not wanting to get calls from the FBI. I will fault them for abandoning our friends because they don’t want angry emails. But, either way, the constant need to build up weird narratives and assume everyone else is really THAT stupid is just tiresome.

            • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de
              11·
              8 days ago

              or when they banned piracy at db0, citing legal threats that didn’t happen, which was before defederating exploding heads, a nazi instance

            • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
              81·
              8 days ago

              Nobody with two brain cells was fooled

              That’s the thing. For some reason, people will come up with this logic that’s designed to fool a 4-year-old, and then just assume that all the adults who are reading it will be totally taken in by it. I don’t know why. Maybe they don’t want to throw some individual who ran out in front with a bad decision under the bus. Or, maybe it’s just painful to say out loud, “I think we were wrong now that we’ve had a chance to look at it more.”

              I’m not going to fault admins for not wanting to get calls from the FBI.

              Yeah, but that’s why you need legal advice. They’re sort of pretending that they’re qualified to make determinations about what is and isn’t a legal problem, which isn’t always a good idea to do all on your own once you’ve grown beyond a certain size. Pretending that you’re making these decisions from a position of knowledge and authority just compounds the problem.

              • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
                4·
                8 days ago

                The reality is that legality doesn’t matter a lot unless you have enough lawyers on staff to fight various government agencies. That is WHY most creators and communities use established services like youtube or reddit because it offloads that hassle to a company that actually has the lawyers to figure out what is and isn’t a risk.

                Whereas a lemmy instance is a few people who have no idea what they are doing.

                The best metaphor I have heard to explain this is: A group of weirdos start singing prayers while you are boarding a plane. The flight attendant tells you that you need to sing along or you will be kicked off the plane. You say that is nonsense. They say they are going to have you escorted off the plane if you continue to be disruptive.

                You KNOW you are within your legal rights to not do that bullshit. But you don’t have a lawyer with you. Best case scenario? You get off the plane, you get an apology handy from a CSR, and you get to get on a different plane in 12 hours. But now you have missed your connecting flight and 1-2 days of your trip. So you are wasting personal days or pissing off your boss and missing an important client meeting and blah blah blah. And… the browner you are, the less likely you are to see that CSR after the cops escort you off a plane.

                So… you just sing along because it is easier. Even if you know it is bullshit, you know it is “close enough” that your life will become a living hell.

                Which is why I have no issue with a site policy of “We don’t want that smoke. Please don’t make jokes about the guy who killed a piece of shit CEO until we know we won’t get investigated by law enforcement”. But I DO have issues with making up weird narratives to justify it.

        • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
          131·
          8 days ago

          What country is lemmy.world based in? Because having a law about talking about jury nullification in the context of a future crime sound so incredibly stupid and specific that I need to know the precedent that led to it.

        • azuth@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          71·
          8 days ago

          No, it was not clarified, they vaguely mentioned they were not based in “free speech” US but it’s pretty clear that it was their own policy since they changed it (they do say they were asking mods to ban all mentions of jury nullification).

          If their opinion was actually based on law, they would not change their policy. They would probably also have added it to their TOS before hand.

          • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldM
            2·
            7 days ago

            I’m not sure what kind of professional legal input they can afford. It’s big by fedi standards but the Patreon raises about 10k/year. Not exactly lawyer money.

            I suspect that it’s a lot of guess work and maybe some help with drafting and filing here and there. I’ve never asked.

      • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
        187·
        8 days ago

        Lw mods aren’t nearly as awful as Reddit ones - most removed comments are either personal attacks or open calls for violence. Even calls for civil disobedience are usually allowed unless they’re clearly direct threats.

        • nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          175·
          8 days ago

          I got a comment removed because they said insinuating Isralies shouldn’t be allowed somewhere was racism. It was fine to do that with Russians during their active war, but Isreal is special and its racist when you hold them accountable the way we hold Russia accountable. And thats when I was specifically refering to the Israeli football hooligans who literally trashed the country they were guests in. So I dont buy that they aren’t as bad. They just don’t control the whole fediverse.

            • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
              32·
              8 days ago

              I don’t think it’s Ruud, I think it’s a little clique of the Lemmy people who stepped forward to take it on day-to-day. Ruud doesn’t seem active on Lemmy.

  • Allonzee@lemmy.world
    1393·
    8 days ago

    I thought they put the terrorist charge on him precisely to avoid requiring a jury as part of all the rights privileges we surrendered post 9/11 in the name of… Pffff… National security.

    National security being hilarious considering the CEOs are still walking the streets free, murdering citizens for profit having never not being actively sucked off by legislators that passed the patriot act and similar legislation.

    The murderous Shareholders are already inside the house. They own the house. You can barely afford to rent it from them.

    • turtle [he/him]@lemm.eeEnglish
      782·
      8 days ago

      I don’t think that’s why they charged him with terrorism. The reason that some terrorism trials are (were?) done in secret in the past I believe is because most of the evidence that would have been presented would have been classified. I don’t think there is any classified evidence related to Luigi’s trial.

      I think it’s more likely that they added the terrorism charge just as an enhancement to potentially add time to his sentence or more opportunities for him to be convicted of something. However, someone posted an insightful comment here a couple of days ago, pointing out that in order to prove terrorism they will have to discuss his motivations at length, which will only make him more sympathetic to most jurors.

      • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
        7·
        7 days ago

        It also lets the defense examine “would a killer target the United healthcare CEO specifically because they were personally evil vs a statement against the system?” That’s also helpful for a defense angling for a nullification mistrial.

          • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
            7·
            7 days ago

            It is, but you need the whole jury to vote that way which i find particularly unlikely. One person voting for nullification, which is more likely, is a mistrial.

          • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
            51·
            7 days ago

            I am not a lawyer.

            Nullification is when the jury hands in a verdict of “not guilty”, even though there’s a preponderance of evidence that the law was indeed broken by the defendant. They basically ignore the Judge’s instructions to weigh the evidence and do something else instead. This would trigger an appeal by the prosecution on the basis of mistrial, since the optics on that situation look like something procedural is way off.

            I’m not well-versed in these matters, but I am intrigued by what would happen if this went to appeal. If it went all the way to SCOTUS, or even some appeals court with a crooked judge, that might not go so well for the defendant.

            • michaelmrose@lemmy.worldEnglish
              5·
              7 days ago

              You don’t get to appeal a not guilty verdict right or wrong its done forever. A mistrial only happens before a verdict is reached so either side could be looking for justification for one if they believe that they stand to lose the case but the judge has to find there is cause.

  • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.caEnglish
    1324·
    8 days ago

    When this happens, it means the laws that enable these people are no longer acceptable to the people. That’s a dangerous place to be.

    • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
      551·
      8 days ago

      It’s only dangerous if you’re a mass murderer. Don’t want to get gunned down on the sidewalk and have people celebrate your death? Don’t be a mass murderer.

        • rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works
          292·
          8 days ago

          Was Luigi ever trained that he was specifically not allowed to shoot a CEO in the back? If not, qualified immunity

          • Apytele@sh.itjust.works
            3·
            7 days ago

            Every time I hear the words “qualified immunity” I think about this:

            I was first trained in acute psychiatry years ago to never ever in forever restrain people face down. Me and my highschool diploma were sitting in a side room in a state hospital for I shit you not a two. week. crash course in inpatient psychiatry after which they dumped me out on the unit to work with criminally insane men for two years. And in my four hour restraint class they hammered into us to never restrain people face down.

            I remember seeing two men fighting and I just figured I’d grab one and somebody else would grab the other and we’d pull and I remember looking over my guy’s shoulder and seeing the other guy gnawing on his face and then there’s a hole in my memory (likely about 60 seconds; it happens with adrenaline) and the next thing I remember I guess we had all fallen and I was laying on top of the guy I grabbed and I shit you not the very first thought in my head was “oh shit, he’s face down I need to get off him” and I slid to the side and just kept a hand hovering over his shoulders in case he tried to pop up and… idk, bite my face off or something. I didn’t even know who it was until he looked back at me. But they had hammered that one thing into my head that hard that I didn’t know what the fuck this guy was gonna do and the first thought in my head was still to get off him.

            So when I saw all these news stories and all this footage of the cops holding people facedown until they asphyxiate I started asking around. I don’t work with cops in the sense that they’re my coworkers but I do run into them a lot dropping off involuntary holds. So I started asking about how they’re trained to restrain people and if they have any training on how to protect people’s airways. And it turns out they do, actually. Everybody I asked pretty universally told me they’re trained to get the cuffs on then immediately turn them on their side. It’s not super advanced, in fact it’s super basic. Basic in the sense that you could’ve taught it to a highschool graduate in under two weeks.

            So it’s funny you mention not being trained for something because actually yeah they are trained to not do things that kill people and yet-

    • Huckledebuck@sh.itjust.works
      1181·
      8 days ago

      “Jury nullification is a fundamental aspect of the American jury system, allowing jurors to acquit defendants despite overwhelming evidence of guilt if they deem the law unjust or immoral. This concept has its roots in colonial America and has been exercised throughout U.S. history, often in response to unjust laws or societal norms.”

      For those not on the know.

      • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.worldEnglish
        311·
        8 days ago

        Werent the admins banning posts about jury nullification for some bullshit “glorifying violence” reason or something?

        • nimble@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          30·
          8 days ago

          .world did for a little bit but i think they ended up deciding that it can be referenced for an already done crime, whereas if it is said in context before someone commits a crime then it would be considered inciting violence or whatever.

          So it’s ok in this context of Luigi, the alleged killer.

  • Critical_Thinker@lemm.eeEnglish
    103·
    7 days ago

    Oh, so like when it goes the other way and the public decides someone is guilty long before they go to trial and prosecutors go after him anyway.

    Big deal. The jury will decide one way or another and I will be very surprised that the highest charges will stick if they get normal people on the bench.

    The fact that this guy had a manhunt out for him when people are murdered every day and nearly no resources are used at all to go after them is astounding. Just shows the law is there for the rich, not the rest of us.

    • nomous@lemmy.world
      461·
      7 days ago

      There was another school shooting this week, i think that’s the 80th this year and people don’t seem to care. Why would anyone care about some parasite millionaire when innocent kids are gunned down everyday and that’s just the way it is.

    • NutWrench@lemmy.mlEnglish
      25·
      7 days ago

      Just don’t mention jury nullification in front of a judge or prosecutor. They hate that.

        • AEsheron@lemmy.world
          8·
          7 days ago

          Never mention it. They will often ask questions about how you think a juror should or can act. If you answer them in a way that shows you might know about nullification, you are out. If you then later admit you know about it, they will point to those questions and know you lied about them. Safest answer is to just never, ever use the term, ideally you should go through the motions in deliberation of putting the the rules together, like you are just realizing it’s a possibility then and there.

          • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
            8·
            7 days ago

            Yeah, I’m saying that we should mention it as non jurors. Its our responsibility to tell them. Here on Lemmy and every way we can. Let jurors know that they have the ability to do justice, even if the law is wrong

            • kreskin@lemmy.world
              2·
              7 days ago

              Yep. Some parts of the law have evolved so far afield from their original context that they conflict with other legal basics. You never know when a conversation like this one might be personally applicable. No one expects or plans to die, or to be called on for jury duty. Its a surprise.

  • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
    851·
    8 days ago

    There’s a McDonald’s worker able to be jury. Oh wait, he didn’t get the reward money as his claim got denied for bullshit reasons, just like insurance… Never mind.

    • Mad_Punda@feddit.org
      16·
      8 days ago

      Is there a source for this? Last time I heard about it, it turned out to be just a ”possibly, maybe, it could be denied”, but nothing was decided yet.

      • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
        40·
        7 days ago

        So, the reports say “might not get it” Like this report but in almost all cases reward money isn’t paid. In this case I’d think he has somewhat of a chance to get it due to public pressure, now that it’s in the media. But in most cases it is denied because of bullshit reasons. “Thanks to your tip we were able to catch the guy, but through other sources we would have found him as well, so, no” or “multiple agencies offered reward money, so they both say the other one should pay up, so none pay up” or “you didn’t follow the right procedures to get the money” or any other bullshit reason to deny payout. Often you’d have to prove you were the sole reason the person got caught, while you don’t have access to restricted case files so good luck with that.

        It basically works like the health insurance system in the US. They will do anything they can to reject your claim while you will have to fight to get what you should.

        Fun fact: radio stations do the same. They offer amazing prices, get loads of people to listen ‘to find the hidden clue’, have them call an expensive phone number. They pick a winner, have them on the air over the phone, everyone hears how happy they are by winning, so people will try to compete next time again. But they never get a price. Because, no one will hear they didn’t get any. Or at least, this used to be so, now with social media it’s harder to hide these shady tactics.

        Not just radio stations by the way, This was recently.

        • PresidentCamacho@lemm.ee
          7·
          7 days ago

          This is the best answer ive seen thus far. Ive just being saying all sources reporting he isn’t being paid are sourcing their info from a game of telephone origination from articles speculating he might not be paid. This is much better written though thanks!

        • boomzilla@programming.dev
          02·
          7 days ago

          Got no doubts about what you stated (also a huge wtf to that basketball charity fuckup) but I’m still convinced the snitch will get her money just as Lugi will be convicted for terrorism, although the commenter above, in his epic joury-comment wrote that the double-conviction wasn’t allowed under the state law. If it isn’t FBI or the police who pays her then it will be the some other CEOs. Maybe on a charity event.

          • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
            2·
            7 days ago

            No one cares whether the snitch will get their money. All eyes will be on the court case. And she it comes to money, everything will be done to deny a payout. It’s how big corps and the government work. Whenever there’s a desk approving a payout, there will be a desk above it questioning it and putting it on hold, finding ways to drown it in paperwork. Spending money means someone will be held responsible for losing funds, which means someone will have a bad rep concerning their career so no one wants to work towards a payout. Capitalism thrives around reducing spendings and increasing profits. That’s a major flaw of capitalism. Investing in the future, the general public or the greater good are not part of the equation.

          • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
            3·
            7 days ago

            “yeah, thank you for the golden tip, we caught the guy thanks to you. But you snitched, and we do not endorse that (with all the whistle lowers lately) so we’re not going to reward your behavior by paying you to show people it’s better to keep your mouth shut… Or we will shut it for you (again, like with all the whistle blowers). Snitches get stitches!”

    • AeonFelis@lemmy.worldEnglish
      71·
      7 days ago

      I understand that she can only get the money if he gets convicted. They’ll probably still find some other excuse not to pay her, but still - I argue that’s a pretty big bias that should disqualify her from jurying.