Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last year, appeared for a status hearing at a procedural court in New York last week amid a sea of supporters waiting outside the courtroom with signs of ‘Free Luigi’, ‘Healthcare is Human Right’.
Luigi Mangione has pleaded not guilty to the state charges but has not yet entered a plea on the federal murder charges in connection with Thompson’s death. The UnitedHealthcare CEO was killed on December 4 while he was walking towards a hotel for his firm’s annual investor conference in Midtown Manhattan.
The 26-year-old was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on 11 counts, including one of first degree murder, two of second degree murder, and counts of other weapon and forgery charges, a CNN report said.
The Manhattan district attorney has said that if convicted, Mangione faces a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Mangione’s next hearing has been scheduled for June 26 by Judge Gregory Carro who also set deadlines for the former’s legal team to file motions.
Additionally, federal prosecutors have not yet decided on whether to pursue the death penalty against Mangione. However, if found guilty on the federal charge of murder, he could be facing the death penalty. The decision will ultimately need the approval of the US Attorney General.
But, with the amount of public support that Mangione has received, more than any person typically charged with first-degree murder would ever get, could play up in his favour. How? With an apparent grey area in American law, named ‘jury nullification’.
Luigi Mangione case: Chances of Jury Nullification
Jury nullification is a term used to describe the situation when a jury, on the basis of their own sense of justice, refuses to convict a defendant despite sufficient evidence of guilt.
In many ways, American juries nullifying a case have been supported by some and opposed by others. The concept is oddly placed in the US legal system.
According to a document from the US Supreme Court, “contrary to the extreme prosecutorial ideology and culture that prevails in contemporary court practice, juror knowledge of jury nullification power is in no way improper, unethical or destructive of justice”.
In fact, it says, juror knowledge that juries may use “jury nullification” to protect Americans from “tyrannical government is the true purpose for the constitutional right and enshrinement of trial by jury. Courts should celebrate, embrace and openly inform jurors of their absolute right to acquit rather than seeking to deceive jurors or to conceal this knowledge and power from them.”
According to a CNN report, Clay S Conrad, the author of ‘Jury Nullification: The Evolution of a Doctrine’ said that the concept is not that simple. “Usually when a jury nullifies a case, what they do is give a lot of weight to weak evidence because it gives them an excuse to do what want to do anyway, which is acquit,” he told the media outlet.
The possible reason as to why Mangione could get a chance at being acquitted also comes from the sympathy coming from the public for him, that voices the same concern over modern American politics and the nation’s healthcare system as him.
Legal experts have reportedly said that Mangione’s defense could try to get in on the jury’s own issues with the for-profit insurance industry, turning it on their client’s side with sympathy, eventually resulting in the nullification of the case.
Can Luigi Mangione get a mistrial?
According to the American Bar Association (ABA), a mistrial occurs when a trial is not successfully completed, is terminated and is declared void before the jury’s verdict, or when a judge presents his/her decision in a non-jury trial.
Former prosecutor turned criminal defence attorney Jeremy Eldridge, while speaking to NewsNation, said that the 26-year-old Mangione could have a shot at a mistrial.
Responding to a question about having an impartial jury on this case in the backdrop of all the support pouring in for Mangione, Eldridge said that the focus is not how much money has been raised for helping him, its about the people who show up and wait outside the courtroom, the young people who are on the Jury “that believe in the ideal that he (Mangione) was representing when he potentially committed this murder. That’s what the prosecution is fighting against”.
The criminal defense attorney describe the case as a ‘prosecution of a man vs the prosecution of an ideal’. Eldridge said that if Mangione continues to have ‘this prosecution of an ideal’ at the forefront of his defense and convince “at least one juror that their distaste for the state health of health care in this country or the inability of health care to care for young people, which is the representative of the exact population that is showing up to support him, he could have a shot at a mistrial here and that’s going to be a giant problem for the prosecution in this case.”
Notably, a mistrial can happen for many reasons. Some of the reasons listed by the ABA are the death of a juror or an attorney. An irregularity found in the drawing of the jury during a trial. A fundamental error which is unfair to the defendant. Because of a juror misconduct, the jury’s inability to reach a verdict as it is hopelessly deadlocked.
