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Raw Story: CEO shooting suspect may win with this 'very strong, public political defense': lawyer
Raw Story - CEO shooting suspect may win with this 'very strong, public political defense': lawyer
Carl Gibson, AlterNet
December 14, 2024 11:01AM ET
Luigi Mangione — who has been charged in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson — could be banking on one particular defense strategy in order to prevail in court.
On Friday, Mangione hired attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo — a former New York City prosecutor with decades of experience in criminal law — to represent him in court as he defends himself against five charges, including second-degree murder. While it remains unknown exactly how Mangione will argue his innocence, one attorney recently told the Guardian that he thinks the alleged killer could bank on claiming he was in "extreme emotional disturbance."
"He has one and only one viable defense and that is extreme emotional disturbance," veteran civil rights attorney Ron Kuby said. "One version of extreme emotional disturbance is he just snapped, but the defense is broader than that and certainly covers the slow, bitter, corrosive wearing away of normal sentiments of right and wrong until it all collapses in pain."
Another unnamed New York City-based criminal defense attorney anonymously told the outlet that Mangione will have a "limited number of defenses" available to him. Investigators have been rapidly accumulating evidence to use against Mangione in court, including a 262-word manifesto found on him when he was arrested in Pennsylvania that reportedly encouraged violence, a 3D-printed "ghost gun" and a silencer. The attorney said that for this strategy to work, the "extreme emotional disturbance" would have to be proven "reasonable from the point of view of the defendant at the time that it occurred." Though in New York, this would mean that Mangione's second-degree murder charge would be dropped to first-degree manslaughter, which still carries a hefty prison sentence.
"The good thing about the defense, from what I’m going to assume is Mr Mangione’s perspective, is that it’s a strong legal defense or at least it’s a viable legal defense, but it’s also a very strong public, political defense," Kuby told the Guardian. "All of his difficulties with the health insurance industry, all of his problems with them, everything that he knows and has read and has heard, the whole narrative comes in at the trial to show his state of mind."
/snip
Carl Gibson, AlterNet
December 14, 2024 11:01AM ET
Luigi Mangione — who has been charged in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson — could be banking on one particular defense strategy in order to prevail in court.
On Friday, Mangione hired attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo — a former New York City prosecutor with decades of experience in criminal law — to represent him in court as he defends himself against five charges, including second-degree murder. While it remains unknown exactly how Mangione will argue his innocence, one attorney recently told the Guardian that he thinks the alleged killer could bank on claiming he was in "extreme emotional disturbance."
"He has one and only one viable defense and that is extreme emotional disturbance," veteran civil rights attorney Ron Kuby said. "One version of extreme emotional disturbance is he just snapped, but the defense is broader than that and certainly covers the slow, bitter, corrosive wearing away of normal sentiments of right and wrong until it all collapses in pain."
Another unnamed New York City-based criminal defense attorney anonymously told the outlet that Mangione will have a "limited number of defenses" available to him. Investigators have been rapidly accumulating evidence to use against Mangione in court, including a 262-word manifesto found on him when he was arrested in Pennsylvania that reportedly encouraged violence, a 3D-printed "ghost gun" and a silencer. The attorney said that for this strategy to work, the "extreme emotional disturbance" would have to be proven "reasonable from the point of view of the defendant at the time that it occurred." Though in New York, this would mean that Mangione's second-degree murder charge would be dropped to first-degree manslaughter, which still carries a hefty prison sentence.
"The good thing about the defense, from what I’m going to assume is Mr Mangione’s perspective, is that it’s a strong legal defense or at least it’s a viable legal defense, but it’s also a very strong public, political defense," Kuby told the Guardian. "All of his difficulties with the health insurance industry, all of his problems with them, everything that he knows and has read and has heard, the whole narrative comes in at the trial to show his state of mind."
/snip
11 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
and have all but ignored our ACTUAL President Biden the past months. 
But my key issue with this lawyer is she doesn't even show that she knows Trump was (indeed) impeached TWICE and the issue was that the Senate failed to achieve 2/3 of Senate votes to convict. One might expect a former criminal prosecutor and now defense attorney to understand the concept. Just as a unanimous jury decision is required in state and federal criminal proceedings, it is not required in many state civil proceedings.
The political and "current event/media" aspects of this trial ARE going to matter. She needs to be more aware.
