Bizarre-sounding Mangione trial rulings
First, Judge Gregory Carro in New York State argued that Luigi Mangione, the leftist terrorist, wasn’t a terrorist because he said he wasn’t.
Judge Gregory Carro argued that Luigi Mangione was wrongly being charged as a terrorist since the radical terrorist’s objective “was not to threaten, intimidate or coerce, but rather to draw attention to what he perceived as the greed of the insurance industry. …
“The defendant emphasized that he wished to spread a ‘message’ and ‘win public support’ about ‘everything wrong with our healthsystem.’”
One man’s terrorist is another man’s do-gooder.
More:
More of the same now at the federal level where Judge Margaret Garnett, a recent Biden appointee, decided that Luigi Mangione stalking Brian Thompson in order to kill him wasn’t a “crime of violence”.
Judge Garnett, a Biden appointee, noted the “apparent absurdity”, arguing that “the analysis contained in the balance of this opinion may strike the average person — and indeed many lawyers and judges — as tortured and strange, and the result may seem contrary to our intuitions about the criminal law.”
You said it, ma’am.
And:
But stalking a man in order to kill him, according to the Biden judge, isn’t a “crime of violence” and has decided to “foreclose the death penalty as an available punishment to be considered by the jury”’
That is so very strange that I did some more research, and discovered the rationale:
To seek the death penalty, prosecutors needed to show that Mangione killed Thompson while committing another “crime of violence.” Stalking doesn’t fit that definition, Garnett wrote in her opinion, citing case law and legal precedents.
So there has to be a separate crime of violence to elevate the charges to a capital offense in New York. So as strange as it sounds, Garnett’s ruling might indeed be correct on this.
I will add that in New York, the difference between capital charges and life imprisonment is more technical than real. You can read about the complicated history of New York executions here, but this is the most relevant part for today:
Capital punishment was reinstated in New York in 1995 for a wide-range of aggravating factors, when Pataki signed a new statute into law, which provided for execution by lethal injection.[28] However, there were no executions before the capital punishment statute was nullified in 2004.
On June 24, 2004, the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, held 4–3 in People v. LaValle that the state’s death penalty statute violated the New York Constitution, because in case of a deadlocked jury the judge could impose a sentence lesser than life without parole, so jurors would be “coerced” to vote for death solely to prevent the convict from being paroled. Governor Pataki criticized the ruling and called for a quick legislative fix.
Between December 2004 and February 2005, public hearings were held in Manhattan and Albany. …
In 2007, the New York Court of Appeals decided in People v. Taylor that the statute defect could not be corrected by a judge instruction to the jury that he would impose life without parole. This led to the commutation of the last of the seven death sentences that were imposed under the 1995 statute.
In 2008, the State Senate again passed legislation that would have established the death penalty for the murder of law enforcement officers, but the Assembly did not act on the legislation. In July of that year, Governor David Paterson ordered the removal of all execution equipment used to perform lethal injection and the closure of the execution chamber at Green Haven Correctional Facility.
The 1995 statute has never been repealed and is still on the books. …
There is currently no inmate on federal death row sentenced for a crime committed in the state of New York.
However, the death penalty can still be imposed in federal cases, even in New York. The reality is that it has not been imposed. The Mangione case is in line with that.
Homicide as an amplifier of my speech, eh, “judge?”
Imbecils in black robes give the other 5% a bad reputation.
Will the judge also acquit Mangione because she determines the assassination to be a form of “free speech”, and thus protected under the First Amendment?
Look up Texas Capital Punishment. Except for certain protected classes of persons, there also must be another felony being committed to be eligible for the Death Penalty for a single murder.
Might “crossing state lines” to commit pre-meditated murder be considered a felony?
(Or would that be merely “murder tourism”?)
OK – two can play
If someone were to shoot and kill Judges Garnett and Carro because they are total idiots could another, more reasonable judge, let’s presume appointed by Trump, then call these judges deaths : “Unfortunate but Justifiable Homicides?”
My hometown of NYC that I left permanently 60 years ago to join the US Military is so screwed up.
Barry Meislin:
Ah, that’s why you need such judges; did the accused use mass transit, a zero emissions automobile, a fossil-fueled automobile, or a SUV?
John Galt III:
It would be a rare judge that didn’t first and foremost protect the “guild of the black robes.”
As they are protecting Boasberg.
I tried reading the judge’s opinion throwing out the capital murder charge and could not make sense of it without doing a really deep dive and reading all of the relevant federal case law. It would also be necessary to read the DOJ’s brief to examine their arguments and case law.
I subscribe to the excellent substack Coffee and Covid by Jeff Childers, an experienced litigator. His take on reading the opinion was that, while prior case law COULD be read in such a way that the predicate charge of stalking is not a crime of violence under these particular circumstances, it is also true that the judge’s hand was not forced, because the law and case law could easily be read the other way.
You can read about the complicated history of New York executions here, …
I couldn’t help thinking of this:
https://www.thoughtco.com/death-money-and-the-history-of-the-electric-chair-1991890
Oh my what would our judge say about this?
H/T instapundit
https://www.shootingnewsweekly.com/crime-and-punishment/hero-ohio-cops-decisive-action-stops-brinks-armored-car-robbery-hostage-situation-video/
He didn’t serve him a citation.
Om: I think I counted 12 shots there — I’m impressed that no one but the perp was hit! That’s what I call good gun control. I wonder if he was a combat veteran?
There are those lower than politicians – judges.
The rober and kidnapper (perp) was probably well ventilated. RIP.
I’ve heard that you shoot until you are sure he isn’t a threat.
What a bizarre world we live in. It’s also telling how The Left have celebrated the death of this healthcare CEO and Charlie Kirk (and to the extent Ashley Babbit), yet they cry the most tears for the likes of George Floyd, Renee Good and Alex Pretti. No outcry from The Left for Iryna Zarutska, though.
Sadly one of the better attempts to analyze this came from – of all places – Twitchy, which is used to dunking on leftist idiots and Vichycon CCs and so was prepared to go in guns blazing on this but has the sense and integrity to want to get its targets right and so actually read through the ruling, and came away agreeing with the Judge that this was the legally correct ruling, no matter how enraging or irritating, due to a problem caused by the Supreme Court.
Here it is for whatever it is worth.
https://twitchy.com/aaronwalker/2026/01/31/lawsplaining-judge-drops-death-penalty-for-luigi-mangione-sends-a-harsh-message-to-supreme-court-n2424528
Wow, that’s truly remarkable…most unfortunately.
(AKA, “What a freakin’ mess”. Whatever were those black-robed guys ‘n dolls thinking of??)
Thanks, Turtler…
I can see this logic being used to justify the ‘elimination’ of some ‘judges’.
Not a place we want to go, is it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCtmpY5vWtQ
David Davies:
No one else here sees that “logic.”
No legal expertise here, but common sense: stalking for the express purpose of attempted murder seems like a violent crime to me. Successful murder + 2nd violent crime. Death penalty. Any other things going on in his head: he wants to teach a lesson; he wants to draw attn. to evil insurance industry; the fact that he thought his intentions were “good…” Irrelevant. Death penalty eligible. Even more so because a judge finding a deliberate hunting down of a specific victim, then lying in wait to murder and then doing so is so odious, so intentional, that failing to find it not a series of violent crimes encourages more similar crime. But then we have liberal DA’s and judges rewriting law all the time nowadays to reduce crime stats, or with the claim that more persons of certain ethnicities are in prison because of their ethnicity and it’s not fair vs. the crimes and who committed them. Add to the “pot” defund police, “ICE out” and who knows what’s next? We find ourselves in “Not law and order.” Otherwise known as chaos. It’s just common sense.