Alternate headline: Judge Ensures State Courts Will Be a Sideshow.
Luigi Mangione allegedly stalked and assassinated a health-insurance CEO for political purposes. Mangione has cultivated political support for his act ever since, with some degree of lamentable success. By any normal definition, this qualifies as an act of domestic terrorism — or at least a reasonable charge for a jury to consider.
Not in the state of New York, however, the judge in the case has ruled. Judge Gregory Carro tossed out the top counts against Mangione of first-degree murder and terrorism, although he still faces second-dgree murder charges from state prosecutors:
A judge has thrown out the top counts in Luigi Mangione’s state murder case – rejecting claims that the accused killer can be charged as a terrorist — in a huge blow to prosecutors.
In a ruling released Tuesday, Judge Gregory Carro tossed charges of murder in the first degree as an act of terrorism and murder in the second degree as a crime of terrorism against the 27-year-old Ivy League grad.
The judge did keep alive Mangione’s other second-degree murder charge. The decision means that Mangione still faces 25-years-to-life in the state case, but not the 25 years to life without the possibility of parole that he had been facing.
Carro practically tied himself in knots to explain this decision:
In a written decision, Judge Gregory Carro said that although there is no doubt that the killing was not an ordinary street crime, New York law doesn’t consider something terrorism simply because it was motivated by ideology.
“While the defendant was clearly expressing an animus toward UHC, and the health care industry generally, it does not follow that his goal was to ‘intimidate and coerce a civilian population,’ and indeed, there was no evidence presented of such a goal,” Carro wrote.
Ahem. Why did Carro think that Mangione targeted UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson, if not to “intimidate and coerce” civilians working in that industry? There are no other ties between Mangione and Thompson to explain the murderer’s choice of targets, and Mangione has made it clear that his act was motivated by politics. His team raises funds for his defense almost explicitly on that premise, and his writings previous to the murder are even more explicit:
In the writings, prosecutors said, Mangione mused about rebelling against “the deadly, greed fueled health insurance cartel” and said killing an industry executive “conveys a greedy bastard that had it coming.” They also cited a confession they say he penned “To the feds,” in which he wrote that “it had to be done.”
Mangione’s “intentions were obvious from his acts, but his writings serve to make those intentions explicit,” prosecutors said in the June filing. The writings, which they sometimes described as a manifesto, “convey one clear message: that the murder of Brian Thompson was intended to bring about revolutionary change to the healthcare industry.”
Exactly. Even if Judge Carro somehow found that iffy, prosecutors should be able to make that argument based on the evidence at hand to a jury.
This is an absurd ruling, but it does have one salutary effect. It will shift the attention and the energy to the Department of Justice and their prosecution of Mangione. Carro also ruled against the defense’s objections to that case proceeding in parallel, allowing it to continue despite claims that it violates the double-jeopardy clause in the Constitution. The defense motion was a Hail Mary anyway, as the doctrine of separate sovereigns is well established.
In the end, this really belongs in a federal court anyway. The DoJ can pursue this as a domestic terrorism case if they choose; at the moment, they have not yet escalated it to that point, but AG Pam Bondi has already ordered prosecutors to seek the death penalty. After this ruling, we can probably expect the DoJ to push for an accelerated trial schedule to eclipse the New York state courts and settle this matter for good. Once the DoJ wins a conviction and sentence — which would be a minimum of life without parole — Judge Carro’s courtroom will be nothing more than an anti-climactic sideshow.
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