SUB-HEADING: "Maybe they can find a couple of cryogenically frozen folks to thaw and make a fair jury."
GIST: "You’ve heard about Luigi Mangione? Of course you have — his likeness has been all over your Twitter feed, Saturday Night Live, and those Altar Candles that were in vogue for a little while.
And while that shared knowledge base might make it easy for you to throw #FreeLuigi on your dating profile to show off your politics and whimsy, it makes it damn hard to compile a neutral jury to adjudicate at trial.
A recent ABA Journal article gets into the details of how to select a jury when you’re dealing with such a high-profile defendant:
“This will be a tough one,” says Don Worley, the president and managing attorney with personal injury law firm McDonald Worley in its Houston office…. “It is tough because it will be hard to find a potential juror who has not heard about this. Most will have already made up their minds about which side they are on before they arrive at the courthouse,” Worley says.
To be clear, there’s been a great deal of PR for either outcome of Mangione’s case. There’s the obvious contingent of people who have been negatively impacted by insurance companies that see Luigi as a hero: about 60% of Americans have recently reported problems with their insurance companies. But it doesn’t stop there!
The fear of being screwed over by healthcare companies in the future was enough to earn Luigi a massive amount of vigilante brownie points: I have no sources but I’m willing to bet that many a shot was drank in Luigi’s honor after Blue Cross decided to mysteriously roll back their pay for your own anesthesia policy change the day after Brian Thompson was killed.
People haven’t just been voicing their support, they’ve been throwing their dollars in too — Luigi recently used $300k raised by grassroots supporters to help fund his legal team. What if one of those paying supporters ends up on the jury somehow?
On the other side, you have all of obvious jury-tainting behavior from the state. You can’t start a list like this without Eric Adams. There was the conclusory address of Luigi as a terrorist that got broadcasted across the world:
New York Mayor Eric Adams on his ridiculous decision to go down to the heliport today when Luigi Mangione arrived before he was arraigned.
“I'm not going to just allow him to come into our city. I wanted to look him in the eye and stated that you carried out this terrorist act a month ago today, Luigi's perp walk took place the same day as the Superman trailer release
And if that wasn’t enough, there was the incessant fanboying from the NYPD themselves that helped add to the Luigi cult following.
The article goes on to suggest that the questions meant for use in voir dire can be honed beforehand in focus groups. And while that does make sense, the old adage “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face” comes to mind. Can you just imagine the actual voir dire?
Prosecution: Hey, we should strike juror 14.
Defense: Why, cause he’s Italian?!
Prosecution: No, because he’s wearing a Deny Defend Depose hoodie and has a “Free Luigi” tattoo on his neck.
Potential Juror: What do you want from me? I’m from Brooklyn!
There’s also the recommendation to cull the prospective jury members’ social media presence for mentions of Luigi. Valid, but who hasn’t said something online about the case? Warned your friends about the importance of not assuming Luigi did it because you believe in due process? That might be a strike. Shared or haha’d a segment with Bill Burr adamantly saying Free Luigi? Too much of a very real jury nullification risk — strike ’em. Share this gif a little too close to December 4th?:
Thank you for your time, the door is on your left.
The prosecution has a serious challenge on their hands. For the sake of due process, I wish them and Luigi the best with finding a neutral and impartial jury. They’re all going to need it.
The entire commentary can be read at:
https://abovethelaw.com/2025/04/healthcare-companies-screwed-over-so-many-people-that-its-hard-to-find-luigi-mangione-a-neutral-jury/PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
———————————————————————————————
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
—————————————————————————————————
FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
