The outpouring of support for Luigi Mangione could prove a major stumbling block in his trial by making jury selection extremely difficult, an attorney has warned.
Former prosecutor Neama Rahmani has said the alleged assassin’s fanbase could delay his criminal case as officials may struggle to select 12 unbiased jurors.
‘I’ve never seen an alleged murderer receive so much sympathy. To many people, Mangione is a hero of sorts,’ California-based Rahmani told Newsweek.
Rahmani said prosecutors have a huge task ahead of them rooting out Mangione sympathizers who may want to watch over his trial.
‘District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office is going to have to weed out “stealth jurors” during voir dire,’ he told Newsweek. ‘They may want to acquit to send a message to health insurance companies.’
Voir dire is the preliminary examination of witnesses and jurors in a trial by judges and counsel from both the defense and prosecution sides of the bench.
Mangione, 26, is accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, 50, in Midtown Manhattan on December 4. He was charged on Tuesday with murder as an act of terrorism over the shock incident.
The alleged gunman has inspired a cult-like following, particularly among young people online who have hailed him as a martyr ‘fighting back’ against predatory health insurance giants.
In fact, Gen Z influencers have urged potential jurors to acquit Mangione, 26, in an attempt to free the Ivy League graduate and potentially subvert justice in his case.
TikTokers called for jury nullification – when the panel of 12 jurors returns a not-guilty verdict even when they think the perpetrator committed the crime.
A startling new poll also suggests that most young Americans even support the slaying of Thompson.
The poll, released by Emerson College – a private university in Boston, Massachusetts – determined that of 1,000 registered voters surveyed, 41 percent of them between the ages of 18-29 believe Thompson’s murder was acceptable.
Of the 41 percent of young voters who agreed that his death is justified, 24 percent of them believe the murder was somewhat acceptable, while 17 percent believe it was completely acceptable, according to the survey.
While a large number of young people agreed Thompson’s murder was valid, 40 percent said it was unacceptable.
Of that 40 percent, 33 percent said that his death was completely unacceptable, while seven percent admitted it was somewhat unacceptable.
Ivy League engineering graduate Mangione was arrested on December 9 moments after eating a hash brown in an Altoona, PA McDonald’s.
Cops closed in on the alleged killer after an employee at the restaurant recognized him from surveillance images NYPD shared online in the wake of the shooting.
He was later charged with second-degree murder over the slaying of Thompson just before 7am on Wednesday outside the Hilton hotel where the exec had been set to address finance heavyweights later that day.
Mangione appears to have led police on a 280-mile manhunt from New York City’s 6th Avenue to the small Pennsylvania city of Altoona, around 100 miles east of Pittsburgh.
The alleged gunman left a trail of overt clues about his motive, including ammunition etched with the words ‘delay’ ‘deny’ and ‘depose’ and a bag of Monopoly board game money in his backpack left in Central Park.
Officials believe the bullet etchings refer to the ‘three Ds of insurance’ – tactics used by American insurance giants to reject patients’ claims.
This motive appeared to be even more clearly outlined in a handwritten manifesto cops seized from Mangione during his arrest, which the NYPD’s chief of detectives Joseph Kenny said expressed ‘ill will toward corporate America.’
‘To the Feds, I’ll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country,’ the three-page document reads. ‘To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone.’
‘I do apologize for any strife or traumas but it had to be done,’ the document adds. ‘Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming.’
Mangione also allegedly had a ghost gun believed to be the rare World War Two era-inspired 9mm pistol used in Thompson’s murder, which the New York Post reported was a Swiss-made Brugger & Thomet VP9, and a silencer.
A date for the start of his trial in New York federal court has not yet been decided.