OH YEAH THEYRE TALKING ABOUT IT NOW
Please do not remove mods, really sorry for the Google AMP link, but this is a “subscribers only” blocked article on CNN that for some reason AMP just straight up bypasses and opens fine.
Direct link: https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/10/us/jury-nullification-luigi-mangione-defense/index.html.
Edit 1: updated title, CNN changed it on me
Jury nullification is an important logical conclusion of American jurist rules. This post will stay up.
Based
It’s literally the reason to have juries. It’s the last line of defense against unjust laws.
https://lemmy.world/comment/14404101
A very important explanation
Hmm, maybe convict him, but give him no penalty and no imprisonment?
That’s a thing, right?
I think the judge decides the penalty after the jury decides on guilt.
Is if you’re Trump
We the jury find the defendant GUILTY! We sentance him to a fine of $1 and a lifetime membership to United Healthcare!
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
lifetime membership to United Healthcare!
So, the death penalty?
Only if you’re rich
I believe the jury decides guilt or innocence, but the judge determines the sentence… In most cases
Yep that’s how that works
It depends on the state. Some states have a full second trial with a new jury in order to determine the sentencing.
Sometimes it’s just a tacked on part of the original verdict.
And the rest of the time it’s just the Judge who can do almost anything provided the sentence stays within certain parameters.
Let’s not forget, maybe, just maybe, this guy is absolutely innocent, was nowhere near the crime at the time, and had nothing to do with it.
And the cops, in their over zeal to catch someone, anyone, found a poor unlucky person who looks like the guy in the crime scene photos and handily fabricated the rest of the physical evidence. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time.
Seriously, a written statement admitting guilt? How likely is that? Anyway, this is what I think is happening. And I doubt the real truth will ever be known, sadly.
You’re engaging in “Hopefullism” based on an emotional need. He absolutely did it. They have a preponderance of evidence that he was at the scene and committed the murder. Bordering on irrefutable proof if not outright.
I hope you don’t engage in hopefullism in other areas like climate change, and trump.
https://www.thecity.nyc/2022/12/13/edny-fbi-investigating-nypd-drug-planting-allegations/
https://theintercept.com/2020/03/18/nypd-misconduct-body-cameras-marijuana/
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ex-nypd-cop-we-planted-ev_n_1009754
https://www.yahoo.com/news/judge-throws-man-guilty-plea-224510985.html
It’s a hard truth to accept that police lie, falsify evidence, and frame people. And I don’t even need to make the claim that cops in general plant evidence. I can make that claim for the NYPD specifically.
NYPD has been caught before planting evidence on people. They were caught doing this not in the dark days of Tammany Hall, but literally just within the last 10 years.
The only physical evidence linking Luigi to the crime scene is a bottle or wrapper that was found in a nearby trashcan that had his DNA on it. The shooter was dressed in a similar outfit to Luigi, a generic outfit that hundreds of men in NYC are wearing at any given time of the day or night. It might have been Luigi that placed that trash there. Or it could have even been the real killer. The real killer could have simply waited until someone that looked a bit like him dropped a wrapper in the trash, and then transported it to the scene of the crime. For a killer that seems to have planned things to such a level of intricacy, planting a false trail of evidence really doesn’t seem unlikely.
I could absolutely see the NYPD convincing themselves, “well, we got Luigi’s DNA near the scene. We have a video that appears to be him putting it in the trash can. This is almost certainly our guy, but he’s a crafty one and knew what he was doing. Let’s just fabricate some additional evidence to really seal the deal.”
It’s telling that Luigi is just the kind of target that the NYPD would pick out if they were going to frame someone for this. Yes, he is from a wealthy family, but he’s been completely no-contact with them for the better part of a year. His family was actively looking for him. Luigi personally was not someone of high social status. He appears to have been living as a drifter and living in hostels and homeless shelters for the last year.
If the NYPD was going to try and frame someone, who better than some random homeless queer kid?
Do I think Luigi actually did it? Probably. But we don’t convict people on “probably.” At least with the evidence we’ve seen in public so far, I would vote not guilty for Luigi. I would want to have a lot more info on the provenance of the weapon and manifesto they had on him before I would vote to convict.
For example, here’s what I want to know. Where is Luigi’s workshop? You’re not making that kind of 3D printed gun in a shared bedroom of a youth hostel. You need space, tools, and privacy. And no maker space is going to let you make and prototype guns on their printers. Where exactly did that gun come from? Where is Luigi’s workshop?
As someone who ran a 3D print farm, even with the latest 3D printers, you will have a ton of trouble printing a ghost gun. The amount of infill, the type of nozzle, the heat and the materials all play a role in making a successful print.
I ran a print farm for a couple of years before closing shop during the pandemic. Even with my knowledge, I would have trouble printing a successful ghost gun.
Exactly. There’s a huge prototyping process. I would expect to make, at an absolute minimum, a dozen prototype stages. And each will take hours to print. This is not some covert process you’re doing in a hostel or homeless shelter. And even if you have access to a makerspace, they’re going to notice and immediately kick you out. No maker space wants that kind of heat on them. And you’ll also need access to a firing range that will let you test your sketchy home-made gun there. And again, no gun range wants that type of liability.
So again, I ask. Where is Luigi’s workshop? Unless you have an owned or rented space, that only you have access to, it is virtually impossible to make a ghost gun without someone finding out.
You almost need to own or rent a large piece of rural land if you want to actually do this.
Tolerances get wonky the larger the thing is and even wonkier when you scale on infill. The more material in your infill, you start to need an enclosed printer which brings in the element of environment.
I don’t know if Luigi did it, but the state and feds gotta come up with a whole lot of evidence for a murder 1 conviction.
They have a preponderance of evidence that he was at the scene and committed the murder.
Youre from the future and have seen it, I presume?
Or are you just believing the cops like an idiot?
Corrupt doesn’t mean stupid. This isnt some nobody weed smoker they collared who nobody cares about. They are well aware that every news org around the world and every eye in this country is going to watching this case with a keen interest. They know that everyone and his brother will be picking over the trial and evidence with a fine tooth comb. They know what’s at stake here. The evidence will be irrefutable.
Action, not misplaced hopefullness helps us.
If the cops were that smart they would’ve found the guy instead of a McDonald’s worker. Saying that just because they arrested someone that they have to be guilty doesn’t sound right either.
Since when did we start defining intelligence as “being everywhere and observing everything?”
It’s not “guilty because he was arrested”, he was arrested due to evidence found that implicated him. Smart or dumb, cops cant be everywhere at all times.
There is too much sunlight and scrutiny on this case for the prosecutors to put forth a patsy. The last thing any prosecutor would want is for this case, especially this case, to turn into an OJ Simpson farce. Rest assured the evidence presented against the defendant will be iron clad. It will involve dna and video captures. It will be very difficult for an objective person to deny he did it.
It is quite possible to approve what he did and at the same time recognise his guilt. You need not be conflicted about that.
I’m not sure if there would be any DNA as the guy was shot, not stabbed. As far as I understand most if not all of what they have is either grainy video snapshots or circumstantial evidence.
You’re right the cops would never lie or plant evidence! No sir! ಠ_ಠ
They would and do all the time. But it would be risky for them to do it in this particular case.
“Hopefulism”? I didn’t know we had a slur for optimists now.
Hopefullism is not optimism.
Hopefullism is misplaced optimism.
deleted by creator
I don’t see your point
I know it’s in NYC, but I live in New York State and really hope I get a summons.
All the best to Luigi. Good luck to him.
Repost of my own comment in a different community:
I would say that jury nullification isn’t just some accident of the legal system, but the primary reason we have juries in the first place.
Judges will say that juries are meant to just decide the simple facts of the case. But what sane person would ever design a system that assigns 12 random untrained nobodies to do that task? If all that mattered was judging the facts of the case, why not have 12 legal scholars instead? Why isn’t “juror” a profession, just like being a lawyer or judge is? If we want people to just apply the letter of the law to the facts of a case, why not fill juries with professionals, each who had a legal degree, and who have sat as jurors hundreds of times? Judging evidence and reading law is a skill. And it’s one that can be educated on, trained, and practiced. Why do we have amateur juries, when professional juries would clearly do their purported job so much better? Or why not just do what some countries do, and have most or all trials decided solely by judges? What exactly is the point of a jury? Compared to everything else in the courtroom, the jurors, the ones actually deciding guilt or innocence, are a bunch of untrained amateurs. On its face, it makes no damn sense!
No, the true reason, and really the only reason, we have juries at all is so that juries can serve to judge both the accused AND the law. Juries are meant to be the final line of defense against unjust laws and prosecution. It is possible for a law itself to be criminal or corrupt. Legislative systems can easily be taken over by a tiny wealthy or powerful minority of the population, and they can end up passing laws criminalizing behaviors that the vast majority of the population don’t even consider to be crimes.
The entire purpose of having a jury is that it places the final power of guilt and innocence directly in the hands of the people. Juries are meant as a final line of defense against corrupt laws passed by a minority against the wishes of the greater majority. An unaccountable elite can pass whatever ridiculous self-serving laws they want. But if the common people simply refuse to uphold those laws in the jury box, those laws are meaningless.
THAT is the purpose of a jury. It is the only reason juries are worth the trouble. A bunch of rank amateurs will never be able to judge the facts of a case better than actual trained legal scholars with years of experience. But by empowering juries, it places the final authority of the law firmly in the hands of the people. That is the value of having a jury at all.
Jury nullification is not just some strange quirk or odd loophole in our justice system. It’s the entire reason we have juries in the first place.
Also a guard against corruption. It’s much harder to keep bribing random jurors than getting and keeping “Jurors” that you can control. See the US Supreme Court as a cautionary tale.
Jury nullification is the term for when a jury declines to convict a defendant despite overwhelming evidence of guilt. This can be a form of civil disobedience, a political statement against a specific law, or a show of empathy and support to the defendant.
“It’s not a legal defense sanctioned under the law,” said Cheryl Bader, associate professor of law at Fordham School of Law. “It’s a reaction by the jury to a legal result that they feel would be so unjust or morally wrong that they refuse to impose it, despite what the law says.”
Over the centuries, American juries have nullified cases related to controversial topics like fugitive slave laws, Prohibition and, in recent decades, the war on drugs.
Giggity.
Jury nullification is also why cops who murder people and klansmen get acquitted. It’s not necessarily a good thing, just a quirk of the system.
It’s not some minor quirk of the system. It’s the only reason we have juries at all. If you just wanted a group of 12 people to decide guilt and innocence based on the facts of the case and the letter of the law, you would never hire 12 random untrained nobodies for that purpose. If that is all juries were for, you would have professional juries; being a juror would be a career that required a law degree.
We have juries to protect against corrupt laws. That is the only saving grace of having guilt and innocence be decided by 12 random untrained nobodies. Legislatures can become corrupted and end up criminalizing things that the vast majority of the population does not consider to be wrong. A jury of your peers is the last line of defense against corrupt laws. And this mechanism is the only reason we have juries like we do.
No, juries are the triers of fact. Juries do not exist to make a determination as to whether the law is fair or not and are (usually) explicitly told this. They have to listen to the facts, decide what actually happened, and then whether the facts match the elements of whatever crime is being charged.
I agree that getting a jury of twelve randomish peers is actually not the greatest system, but it’s what we’re working with. So in this paradigm, jury nullification is a huge problem because it’s twelve random people just deciding not to enforce a law the rest of society (sort of) has said needs to be enforced. This in turn leads to white supremacists getting acquitted by juries after prosecutors proved beyond a doubt that the defendants committed the crime and the same happening with police that abuse their powers.
It could end up working to protect civil liberties. But the reality is it mostly results in the status quo being upheld and/or actual criminals that need some kind of punishment being acquitted.
This is a self-serving lie promulgated by legislators and jurists who loathe a check on their own power.
Form follows function. The jury nullification “loophole” has been known for centuries. Entire constitutions have been written knowing full well that they will enable jury nullification. There are ways you could design a legal system that wouldn’t allow nullification. Yet time and time again, the people have chosen not to reform the system to eliminate jury nullification.
Yes, giving juries power to judge the law often produces negative outcomes. But that’s simply democracy. Sometimes democracies produce bad outcomes, just like any system of government.
Not guilty of a crime as stated by a jury of his peers. Has the legal ramification of nullifying laws that a jury says are unjust. It is literally THE last bastion of hope US citizens have for undoing criminal laws.
Y’all screaming legal terms like it makes any difference. Luigi is going to jail for the rest of his life like the rest of the incel terrorists.
incel terrorist
Pretty sure he impregnated the whole damn country when his pics were posted.
