Episode Transcript
Morgan Sung, Host: Back in February, a dancer at the Los Angeles strip club Jumbo’s Clown Room put on a very special performance. She wore 8-inch platform heels and a black string bikini, but on top, an unexpected accessory: a big t-shirt printed with Luigi Mangione’s mugshot.
Melkorka Licea, Guest: And, uh, at one point she put this t-shirt up with his face and wrapped it around her face so it looked like Luigi was dancing
Morgan Sung: This is investigative journalist Melkorka Licea. She described the performance in a story she wrote for Wired — a deep dive reporting on Luigi’s rapidly growing fandom.
Melkorka Licea: and then another point she ripped the shirt off and like put it on the ground and started riding on him and the crowd went wild and everyone started chanting “Free Luigi! , ” So it was quite the scene.
Morgan Sung: Just over a year ago, on December 9, 2024, then-26 year old Luigi Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, under suspicion for the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Thompson had been shot on the sidewalk outside the Hilton in midtown Manhattan just days before.
His death was an immediate cultural flashpoint, sparking online debate and discussion about the US’s dysfunctional healthcare system. But after Luigi was arrested, and his face was made public, the narrative shifted.
[Tiktok clip from @dearmedia ]
I saw the mugshot and then I saw the picture in the cell, and I’m like, they need to stop releasing his photos, everyone’s too horny.
[Tiktok clip from @ meyechelgossipsdeluxe]
Like, I don’t even think the Joker got this kind of treatment. I also feel like … did he get a haircut?
[TikTok clip from @michellearezouross]
We, the people, want Luigi free! We, the people, want Luigi free!
Morgan Sung: The fanfare around Luigi is unprecedented. He’s become the face of protest against the broken medical system — and to add to that? He’s kind of a sex symbol. Many of his supporters think he’s innocent. Plenty of them say they don’t condone violence, but are vocal about his right to a fair trial. Others believe he stands for something bigger, and that he should walk free regardless of whether or not he did it.
Either way, over the last year, Luigi has gained a massive following. Even if you weren’t a supporter, it was nearly impossible to escape the flood of content about him on social media … and that makes his case incredibly complicated when it comes to legal proceedings.
Luigi faces charges in three different jurisdictions — there’s a state court case on gun and fake ID charges in Pennsylvania, and two New York cases for murder: one state and one federal. And though the buzz around him has quieted down from its initial level, at the pre-trial hearing for the New York state case just two weeks ago, supporters still packed into the back rows of the courtroom. Many of them wore green, inspired by the viral emerald knit sweater that he wore at one of his first hearings.
So, a year after his arrest, how does Luigi’s robust fanbase complicate all of this? And what can the last year of viral chatter tell us about the future of extremely public criminal cases?
Today, we’re diving into the phenomenon of Luigi Mangione … how the flood of content about him, and the fracturing of the fandom, could make the process of jury selection in any trial unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. Buckle up.
This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist, and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it.
Morgan Sung: Before we really get into it, it’s been a long year, ok? A lot has happened. Let’s get a little refresher on the early days of this case. And for that, we’re opening a new tab: Why did Luigi go viral?
Let’s go back in time to December 4, 2025. 50-year-old Brian Thompson, the CEO of one of the biggest health insurance companies in the United States, was about to enter a Midtown hotel. He was scheduled to speak at an investor meeting later that morning. But then he was fatally shot in the back.
[Clip from Eyewitness News ABC7NY]
He was in Manhattan for an annual conference at the Hilton when his life was cut short this morning by a murderer in Midtown.
Morgan Sung: The masked shooter initially fled on foot, and then hopped on a Citibike, kicking off a nationwide manhunt. Later that day, the NYPD held a conference about the attack.
[Clip from Fox 4 New York]
Early this morning, 50-year-old Brian Thompson the CEO of United Healthcare was shot and killed in what appears, at this early stage of our investigation, to be a brazen, targeted attack. This does not appear to be a random act of violence.
Morgan Sung: Now, United Healthcare, like many other health insurers, has faced immense criticism for the way it handles claims. And it had been in the news. About a month before the shooting, a ProPublica investigation revealed that United Healthcare had cut some mental health treatments by using an algorithm. That’s a practice that California, Massachusetts, and New York have since deemed illegal.
United Healthcare’s claim denial rate last year hit 32% — the industry average is 16. A Senate Majority Report on Medicare coverage last year found that United Healthcare in particular denied coverage for care and support services needed after hospitalization.
The company’s profits, meanwhile, had skyrocketed under Thompson’s leadership. He had become the face of United Healthcare’s successes, and all of the grievances people had with the company.
Then, police found three words engraved on the bullet casings used to kill Bryan Thompson: Deny. Defend. Depose.
They appear to reference the phrase “Delay, Deny, Defend” — the tactics that insurers use to avoid paying for claims.
Suddenly, it seemed like there was a motive. Online, people started to sympathize with the suspect. Some people did celebrate the murder, but for others, it wasn’t about condoning violence Anyone who’d had experience with their health insurance company might imagine how someone could be pushed to the extremes.
This story had become a cultural moment way before anyone knew anything about the suspect. It was a uniquely American story. Like, this was a segment on the Daily Show, the day after the shooting.
[TikTok clip from @thedailyshow]
But now the cops just need to narrow down the list of suspects to anyone in America who hates their healthcare plan and has access to guns [laughter] It should be solved in no time!
Morgan Sung: The next few days were consumed by the nationwide manhunt. Authorities released a grainy shot of a, “person of interest” grinning, under a hooded jacket and thick eyebrows. The police announced that they discovered a backpack that allegedly belonged to the shooter. No firearm, but inside: a jacket, and a stack of Monopoly money. This was another viral moment, because it seemed like the suspect was trolling.
Finally, after five days, local police in Altoona, Pennsylvania arrested Luigi Mangione. A McDonald’s employee had called in, and said they noticed similarities between a young man in their store, and the person of interest that the NYPD posted.
The photos of Luigi Mangione after he was arrested blew up online. Here’s journalist Melkorka Licea again.
Melkorka Licea: It started as just sort of a healthcare related story, right? And then once that photo of Luigi was released and he had his, you know, thick eyebrows and a very attractive face. Suddenly the narrative really shifted from solely just a person perhaps avenging some type of healthcare related issue to just like, ‘oh, he’s, he’s maybe a hero. He’s hot and he did something good for the world.’ And that’s I think when it really started to like spin off into a whole nother dimension online.
Morgan Sung: The shell casings matched the 3D-printed gun that police said they found on Luigi, along with a fake New Jersey driver’s license, and a handwritten document about American healthcare.
It wasn’t just his looks. As soon as his name was released to the public, internet sleuths dug up a Goodreads account that appeared to belong to him — same name, same face. This account logged books that are pretty typical of a mid-twenties software engineer, like The 4-Hour Work Week and Atomic Habits.
The account gave The Lorax five stars, and the Unabomber’s manifesto four. But it also listed a few books about chronic pain and an X account that matched Luigi’s name and face had posted an X-ray after back surgery, with screws in the lower spine. This digital trail, even if it didn’t belong to Luigi, garnered sympathy from social media users. A lot of people could identify with debilitating chronic pain.
On December 19, Luigi was transported from Pennsylvania to New York. When he arrived, a swarm of heavily armed officers and then New York Mayor Eric Adams escorted him. This super publicized perp walk was another major viral moment. He was an instant meme.
[TikTok clip from @reyahthelastdragon]
First of all, Luigi turned that perp walk into his catwalk, ok? One thing about him? He’s gonna serve. This man does not take any bad photos. And, hell, this photo in question looks like it should be on the cover of album of the year.
[Clip from Hawk’s Podcast Youtube Channel]
People were cheering from windows as they marched him through the streets. It was a f*cking parade, it wasn’t a perp walk. I’ve never seen anything like this before!
[Clip from @ Priscilla BoyeYoutube Channel]
Hate to say it, might be unpopular. But honestly, this only made him look cooler. Like, let’s be so real.
Morgan Sung: On social media across the country and internationally, people compared the photos to Renaissance paintings of Jesus and scenes from superhero movies. Typically, perp walks are meant to cast the suspect in a sinister light. Clearly, this didn’t go according to plan. If anything, the spectacle of the perp walk gave his supporters more material to edit and repost. And this was the foundation for the Luigi Mangione fandom.
Melkorka Licea: I was on TikTok, Instagram reels, everything. It was truly exploding with like, fangirl type of content, I would say. TikToks with like hearts surrounding him, calling him like the hottest hero, and just a lot of like thirsty, for lack of a better word, content out there. But everyone, at least what I was seeing online, was very on his side for the most part, like viewing it as he was this Robin Hood hero. I remember the internet was saturated with this content around Christmas time. And everyone, I think, was like, off work or had more free time and was just scrolling, making these TikToks for a couple of weeks.
Morgan Sung: So by the holidays, Luigi Mangione had already amassed a huge following. But his supporters didn’t stay united for long. Any fandom online, whether it’s Marvel shows or teen vampire romances, is bound to have rifts. But with a criminal trial, fandom infighting has actual stakes. We’ll get into that in a new tab: The rifts in the Luigi Mangione fandom.
Melkorka started reporting on Luigi Mangione’s fan base this spring. She wanted to understand why his supporters were so passionate, beyond just his looks.
Melkorka Licea: As I started reaching out to people and talking to people, I realized very quickly that some people were very upset that I would reach out to them asking about healthcare and that, you know, I was part of the problem as the part of the media. And so I was like, Hey, look, um, I didn’t know about this, uh, can you fill me in? I’d love to to learn more. And that’s when I really started to understand that there was actually a lot of this infighting going on online.
Morgan Sung: So, based on Melkorka’s reporting, there are three main factions within the Luigi fandom. The first, they think he’s a hero, standing against the broken healthcare system, regardless of whether he did it. The second faction believes he’s innocent, and they don’t like associating him with healthcare causes because that narrative makes him look guilty. And finally, the thirst accounts. Melkorka is going to walk us through these three factions. Let’s talk about the first one. The group that is that’s using this momentum to raise awareness of the broken healthcare system. Can you explain their motivations? Like how do they see Luigi? How are they portraying him on social media?
Melkorka Licea: Because, you know, Brian Thompson was the CEO of United Healthcare. There was not exactly a motive released right away after this crime happened. But a lot of you know evidence seems to point to Luigi having suffered through a very difficult healthcare journey himself. And I think that really resonated with so many people that they wanted to use this conversation that was going on online to further reform and to, you know, bring more awareness and, you know, hopefully change the healthcare system for the better and create a more accessible system for folks. A lot of them use personal examples or are highlighting very awful experiences that some people have had. One group they put a giant billboard truck outside of the courthouse that scrolled through all these different cases, wrongful death lawsuits. So a lot of them have started Instagram accounts, a lot of them have TikToks as well, where they create reels or slideshows that again highlight cases where people were wronged by the healthcare system, talk about Luigi and you know, the information that’s come out about his personal journey with the healthcare system and how it relates.
Morgan Sung: How did this event act as like a conduit for people’s just universal rage against the system on an emotional level?
Melkorka Licea: Um, I think it gave people a lot of empowerment to get on the internet and share their stories, to be angry about what they’ve gone through. Of course, when people are pushed, especially physically in ways that is painful, they don’t have access, you know, it’s putting them out of money. I think it did make people feel like, Hey, yeah, I feel like I’m being pushed to violence, or maybe I’m being pushed this far too. And and maybe let’s talk about it, because it’s not okay and it’s not normal.
Morgan Sung: Then there are the fans who believe that Luigi is totally innocent. Why don’t they get along with the healthcare advocates? How would you describe the way that they post?
Melkorka Licea: So those folks believe that by tying a healthcare message to this case at all, um, and tying that to Luigi at all already implies that he’s guilty. So by talking about, you know, Luigi’s past with healthcare, that is insinuating his guilt. And they feel that Luigi is genuinely innocent, that he should not be tied at all to any sort of healthcare message because he had no healthcare message.
Um, and that he’s a young man who is essentially being framed for this crime. So they feel that, although of course, that the healthcare message is something that a lot of them believe in, um, they think that it has no business, uh, being tied to this case whatsoever.
Morgan Sung: How do they post online? What, what is their reach, um, how do they interact with the internet at large?
Melkorka Licea: I would say, you know, they’re less known. Obviously, as I went in, I also myself did not know about them. But the more I sort of learned about who they are, I started noticing them more often.
So they also create Instagram accounts and as well as TikToks, but they really only push the message of like Luigi is innocent, here’s why. They really like to present a lot of evidence that they feel points to his innocence, instances where police may have done something where they tainted evidence, for example, or you know, did something along those lines. And then another kind of bigger aspect of I think their fighting online is they very much go to the healthcare people and sort of spark debate in the comment section, in you know, messaging, sometimes I think in person as well.
They go, you know, show up to the court cases where there’s a lot of Luigi fandom outside or supporters outside, and they, you know, engage in conversation with them as well. So yeah, I think I’ve heard some instances where it’s gotten pretty heated between some of them. Um, I think the majority of it does take place, you know, on DMs.
So there is one interaction between one of my sources and one of the healthcare people where the healthcare person was saying, ‘Hey, can you stop posting about this? Because most of the donors to Luigi’s case or have the healthcare message and you are actually getting in the way of him receiving money for fighting his case.’ So yeah, there’s certainly some interesting points and back and forth with, from both sides.
Morgan Sung: Yeah. Finally, uh, the third group, um, are the fan accounts that will post any update or photo of Luigi. And I love the way that you phrased it in your Wired article. You said that they are “click driven, thirst forward.” What are their motivations? Like, how do they post?
Melkorka Licea: I think a lot of those types of posters, they’re just posting like cute pictures of Luigi with, you know, cute filters on top and uh, you know, talking about how he’s so sexy and that they love him. Um, and I do think for many of those posters, they do feel a connection to the healthcare movement and that is why, you know, I think he’s so glamorized, that’s part of it for them.
But most of it is very just like they are thirsting for Luigi. He is a good looking guy. He also is, to many of them, a very good person. They really like to go into his narrative of just like, how sweet of a guy he is. He was always helping his friends. He was just a good human being. You know, a good student. So the thirsters like to build him up as kind of this prince charming type of guy.
Morgan Sung: You had also mentioned this kind of competitive nature when it comes to posting about Luigi. Can you explain that? Like how is that impacting the way that people consume information about him?
Melkorka Licea: I think just like journalists where we are trying to get scoops, it’s the same thing for some Luigi posters where you know, whoever can get their hands on this detail about Luigi’s trip somewhere from a family member or, you know, maybe they got access to court documents first and get to post it first. And that will lead to more followers and more engagement. And I think for some of them, in their eyes, that could lead to potentially getting closer to Luigi.
Morgan Sung: So to sum it up — the healthcare advocates believe Luigi is the face of resistance to a broken system. But the supporters who believe he’s innocent think the healthcare advocates are implicating his guilt by projecting a motive onto him. And both groups are frustrated by the thirst accounts, because they think that by fixating on his looks, it discredits the work of real supporters who just want him to have a fair trial.
There’s a kind of clout aspect that muddies this up even more. Melkorka said some accounts are incentivized to keep posting and driving up engagement, in hopes of getting Luigi’s attention. It’s not dissimilar to a fan account trying to get their favorite celebrity to respond to a post.
For his 27th birthday, Luigi put out a public letter, listing 27 things he was grateful for. Number 9: His cellmate. Number 26: Free speech. And Number 16: Latinas For Mangione.
The Instagram account Latinasformangione took credit for that one.
Melkorka Licea: I messaged the account before the letter came out. And then I saw, you know, after the letter came out and they amassed like tens of thousands of followers. So something like that can really springboard a supporter into the public eye um, perhaps like receiving more opportunities,
I think for a lot of these supporters just being acknowledged by Luigi is a huge deal. He’s someone that they really, really love and care about. So one of their heroes just acknowledged their existence. That’s major. Um, and also he receives lots of letters in prison. So the chances that he would read your letter and, and address you, I think is really, um, massive for a lot of these followers and supporters.
Morgan Sung: Earlier this year, um, on the show we covered this kind of online censorship following the killing of Charlie Kirk. How did Charlie Kirk’s death impact the online discourse around Luigi specifically?
Melkorka Licea: It definitely impacted it. So, you know, many of the Luigi supporters do put Luigi Mangione and Charlie Kirk’s shooter in the same bucket of people who maybe had a bigger idea of for why they committed the crime that they committed, a driving justice motivator, whether it’s political, whether it’s healthcare reform. But they sort of see both of them as Robin Hood-esque vigilantes who, you know, weren’t just shooting to kill somebody, but were doing it for a much larger cause that a lot of people felt that they could identify with.
I did speak to some of my sources afterward the Charlie Kirk incident, and they have sort of moved away from the Mangione fandom a bit because they felt that the Charlie Kirk discourse was taken too far. It made them uncomfortable. You know, before it was Luigi and his case, and it was sort of an isolated thing, and now it’s being turned into like a quote unquote pattern. And I think for some of them it was just too far and they didn’t want to continue supporting.
Morgan Sung: And then on the other hand, um, you know, the backlash against people who spoke out against Charlie Kirk following his death. Did that discourage any of the Luigi Mangione fan accounts from posting? I mean, have they changed their strategy because of the way that..yeah, just like the backlash has gotten so severe?
Melkorka Licea: I think they actually sort of welcome it, uh, for a lot of them. Even negative engagement is good engagement. A lot of them enjoy sort of getting into the comments and, and get fighting and, and getting into these arguments. Um, so I don’t think it’s really discouraged them honestly. Um, if anything, it might open more doors for them to make more points and create more content.
Morgan Sung: How would you describe the current content ecosystem around Luigi Mangione today? I mean has it changed from a year ago?
Melkorka Licea: Yeah, certainly. I think that the thirsting has died down a lot, that it had a big moment. You know, right after, but that it’s, it’s died down and now it’s become a lot more, um, serious and, uh, the more serious accounts that really are fighting for, you know, healthcare reform and also his innocence,they’re the ones that are really continuing the work they do, putting in that work every day. Um, of course the thirst content doesn’t go away, but it’s just much, much less. Um, although I imagine that it will certainly pick up again in the future.
Morgan Sung: There’s a documented link between criminal trials and fandom, like serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy. They attracted groupies way, way before the internet existed. But what is it about Luigi’s case and the support system that he’s built that’s different?
Melkorka Licea: I think it’s because it involves, you know, a justice issue, where it’s not just a good-looking serial killer who killed, you know, innocent women. It’s someone who a lot of people feel killed someone who maybe deserved it, which is very dark, but I think it represents a much more Robin Hood-esque movement than any of the other people who attracted groupies.
I do think it’s interesting looking at fandoms for people like the serial killers you mentioned, because they did not have the internet at the time. And it was more about sending letters and kind of creating this fantasy world with this person in your mind. Whereas now we kind of have this big collective fandom that becomes a huge movement. I find it really interesting how the internet fuels that. Yeah, I wonder, I’m very curious to see how the, if we, you know get to trial, what how the jury will be chosen? Like, how are they gonna, how are they gonna choose those people? I genuinely don’t know. Like, how do you avoid this? You can’t, you, people don’t live under a rock. Like, how do you, how do you manage to find people that don’t probably already have like a preconceived notion about him?
Morgan Sung: Exactly.
Melkorka Licea: It’s gonna be a really interesting process.
Morgan Sung: For sure. We’re going to answer those exact questions after a break.
Morgan Sung: We’re back! Let’s open a new tab: Jury selection in the age of the internet.
To dive into this, we need to hear from a legal expert, Daniel Medwed, professor of law at Northeastern University. He specializes in criminal law and wrongful convictions, so he’s been following this case pretty closely.
Morgan Sung: There is so much content about Luigi Mangione online, you know, both positive and negative. Why might this flood of content make the possibility of a trial even more complicated?
Daniel Medwed, Guest: I think it makes it more complicated for the following reasons, not just that almost every juror knows about this case, but almost every juror has some preconceived idea about the virtue of his behavior or the lack of virtue, or some idea about him as a person.
And in our system of law, the goal is to find not necessarily jurors who’ve never heard of the case, but jurors who can be fair and impartial. And the goal of the lawyers and the judge is to figure out who within that group can put aside their preexisting information and belief and look at the evidence with equanimity, look at the evidence, uh fairly. This almost more than any case in recent imagination, is gonna put that principle to the test.
Morgan Sung: How does jury selection usually play out in high profile cases, even if they aren’t nearly as high profile as this?
Daniel Medwed: So what happens in most trials, Morgan, is that the lawyers and the judges will ask questions of the jurors who are there to be selected. So you sort of winnow down this huge pool of prospective jurors into the 12 jurors and two alternates typically that are ultimately impaneled for the jury. And those questions are designed to ferret out jurors that might be biased or not a good fit for the case.
So both the prosecution and the defense typically have two different ways of ferreting out these jurors. One is called a challenge for cause and there is typically no cap on the number of challenges for cause that you can raise. So let’s just say there’s a juror who is like, knee deep in the Luigi fandom, uh, world and has posted a lot about how much that person loves Luigi and supports Luigi. A prosecutor could probably strike that person for cause, say that person is biased, really can’t be objective and fair in the case. And, and like likewise, right? A defense lawyer could maybe, um, strike somebody for, cause who’s made it clear on social media or elsewhere that they believe that what Luigi Mangione did was completely without justification and abhorrent and, you know, he should be given, uh, the severest sanction possible.
But the second mechanism, and I think this is what’s gonna be really interesting, Morgan, it’s called a peremptory challenge. And both sides, each side has a set number of peremptory challenges depending on the jurisdiction and the type of case. And what a peremptory challenge is, is you can strike somebody without articulating the basis for striking them. You don’t have to say, ‘I think they’re biased,’ you’ll just say ‘I don’t want number 12. I don’t want number 26.’ And the idea here is maybe you don’t have anything concrete to hang your head on to suggest that the person is biased against your case, but you have a sneaking suspicion that they wouldn’t be good for your side, and so you’ll end up using your peremptory challenges.
In a case like this, Morgan, I think peremptory challenges are gonna be the name of the game because the lawyers are really gonna try to ferret out and figure out who within the pool is gonna really, you know, steer the jury in one way, way or the other.
Morgan Sung: So there’s this social media challenge where like there are so much just like content about Luigi, good and bad, but then there’s this other thing offline, and it’s the fact that a lot of people in the US have been screwed over by health insurance. How does that affect this, this kind of jury selection process?
Daniel Medwed: Most Americans have to, at some point in their lives, deal with hospitals, health insurance, doctors, and many of us are frustrated by how health insurance companies respond to our claims. And so the idea of potentially exacting revenge against someone from a very profitable high profile health insurance company is something that a lot of people could relate to, not necessarily in terms of inflicting violence. I hope that’s not something people can relate to, but the idea of expressing extreme displeasure with how big insurance companies treat their clients, clients who are often in the throes of medical crises and have mounting bills.
So I think the way that this could affect jury selection, Morgan, is there are gonna be lots of questions, especially from the prosecution of prospective jurors: What is your experience with the insurance industry? Have you ever filed a claim that was denied, right? What is your view of vigilante justice? If you are upset about how somebody has treated you or a loved one, do you think the appropriate mechanism is to go to law enforcement or to inflict revenge, um, at a private level? So I think there’ll be lots of questions that are, that are designed to probe into whether a witness is biased.
Morgan Sung: Like you said, there are pretty clear cut examples here of, uh, reasons why someone might be, you know, cut out from the jury. And that could be, you know, running a thirst account for Luigi, uh, be running a healthcare reform account, or even just being like very vocally anti Luigi. But then those are all people who are posting online. What about internet consumption habits? Like, how does that play a role here?
Daniel Medwed: So one thing that’s happened more and more in the last decade or so in high profile cases is the judges are asking jurors, prospective jurors, and the litigants are asking prospective jurors about their media consumption habits.
Daniel Medwed: Back in the day before the internet took off, some of these questions would relate to newspaper and television consumption habits. You know, do you read the New York Times? Do you watch ABC news, things like that.
Now what we’re seeing is judges and litigants asking prospective jurors: What news media do you consume online? What websites do you go to? Are you active on social media? What have you seen on social media? And sometimes the failure of a judge to do this in a high profile case can create problems down the road.
Morgan Sung: Is there any precedent for this? Like, what was the turning point for, uh, for lawyers to actually pay attention to potential jurors’ internet habits?
Daniel Medwed: I think the turning point Morgan, was the Boston Marathon bombing case. So the Boston Marathon bombing occurred back in 2013, pretty long ago. Um, and the one man who was charged with the crime, Jahar Tsarnaev, went to trial in federal court in Boston, very high profile case. So what happened, and the reason why I’m thinking of this case, Morgan, is the judge didn’t do a great a job of ferreting out the online presence of the jurors. And ultimately, that caused problems on appeal because the defense said…it turned out that some of the jurors had consumed a lot of information and seen a lot about Jahar Tsarnaev, and they hadn’t disclosed that during jury selection, in part, because they hadn’t been asked thoroughly. And it created all sorts of problems that delayed the resolution of the case. So I look at that case as one, as sort of a bellwether, um, or like a canary in the coal mine.
Morgan Sung: I mean, it’s one thing to ask, you know, like what news sites do you read? How many hours a day do you spend on TikTok? But it’s, it’s another thing to ask like, what subreddits do you visit? Do you read fan fiction? You know, like these, it all seems a bit invasive. Where do you like, where is the line here? Like, what will people actually fess up to?
Daniel Medwed: I don’t know where the line is. The judge will probably probe and prod as far as possible, but that doesn’t necessarily ensure, as you suggest, that the jurors will be forthcoming. And what’s especially kind of complicated here is the fact that Luigi Mangione is this, this sex symbol.
So I imagine that some of these sites, um, have sexual or sexual adjacent, if that’s even a word, content. And so jurors who have visited those sites might be reluctant, they might be embarrassed to admit that they go to those sites, but yet that information might be relevant to the lawyers and the judge in figuring out whether the juror can be fair and impartial.
It’s fair to say that the judges and the lawyers are gonna push the line as close as possible to invading the privacy and autonomy of the prospective jurors. Some jurors are gonna push back and there aren’t that many great mechanisms for figuring out whether the juror is not being completely honest and transparent in their answers.
Morgan Sung: So, looking forward, once a jury has been selected, despite all of the challenges that Daniel just laid out, prosecutors might still face another hurdle. Let’s open one more tab: What is jury nullification?
If one of these three pending, uh, cases does go to trial, people keep throwing around this word: jury nullification. What is that and why is it relevant to this case specifically?
Daniel Medwed: So here’s what jury nullification is: Iit’s an ancient power. It dates back to ye old England, Morgan, that basically says the jury may reject the law, they may reject the facts, and they may acquit the defendant. Even if under the law, the government has proven the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Usually what jurors are told to do, and usually what I hope or presume they do, is they act in a fair fashion and if they think the evidence proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, in a criminal case, they vote to convict. And if they think it doesn’t, they vote to acquit. Jury nullification is when the jury is so moved by the defendant and by the defendant’s cause and by the circumstances that they basically ignore the law, they ignore the facts, and they try to send a message to society by acquitting the defendant.
Morgan Sung: Can you give any examples of how this has played out in the past in also similar high profile cases?
Daniel Medwed: Absolutely. I mean, jury nullification is, it’s like a stick of dynamite. It’s very, very dangerous because it is a way, to use sort of the dynamite analogy, for a jury to blow up the case. To just blow it up because they believe based on their own conscience, their own ideology, their own ethical or moral compasses, that that’s the right thing to do. And depending on your vantage point, what’s right for one person might not be right for the other person.
So, for instance, one notorious example of jury nullification, which history does not view kindly for good reason related to the trial in Mississippi of the men who killed Emmett Till. And a lot of people think of this as the case that that triggered or sparked the civil rights movement.
Morgan Sung: Emmett Till was a 14-year-old Black boy from Chicago. In 1955, while Emmett was visiting relatives in Mississippi, he and a few other boys stopped at a grocery store to buy candy. There, a white woman accused him of whistling at her. There are conflicting witness reports of what happened, but remember, this was the South during Jim Crow. In retaliation, a group of white men kidnapped Emmett from his great-uncle’s home and brutally beat him to death.
Daniel Medwed: They were not sheepish about this. They were bragging about the role in killing Emmett Till. And those men faced murder charges and an all white jury nullified, even though they had confessed to the crime. All the physical evidence, all the direct and circumstantial evidence pointed to them.
So during nullification, when, when people talk about it. They often think about it in a way that will sort of vindicate the good person, vindicate somebody who has done something noble, even if, uh, it’s technically a crime. But it can also sometimes be used to excuse morally abhorrent conduct.
Morgan Sung: In the case of Luigi Mangione, there’s just so much content about him, good and bad, but you know, just a lot of content. How might that influence a jury to nullify, even if they’re, you know, picked to be fair and impartial? Even then, how might this current content dichotomy influence that?
Daniel Medwed: I think it’s fair to say, it seems as though the vast majority of the online content is favorable to Mangione, right? Lots of fans. Lots of fans of his sort of Robin Hood-like behavior, taking on big insurance. Lots of fans of how he looks right and how he acts.
So that makes me think that there could be some stealth jurors, folks who get onto the jury who maybe haven’t quite disclosed the full extent of their fandom.
Or even if there aren’t stealth jurors, there are just people who have a passing understanding of the case and they can be fair. But when they’re sitting there and they’re really thinking about the case. It’s quite possible they could nullify.
But just to play devil’s advocate for a moment, again, it’s one thing in the abstract to think about someone’s behavior and hold it high, to consider it to be noble, to consider it to be justified. It’s one thing that we can all do. But then when you’re in the courtroom and you’re seeing that person every day sitting at defense table and you’re listening to the evidence documenting in excruciating detail what he did in premeditated and deliberate fashion, kill a person he had never met and had no personal beef with, it might become a little bit harder to nullify
Morgan Sung: Yeah. Looking back at the last year and watching Luigi Mancini’s case unfold, what can we learn about the future of criminal law and criminal cases in the age of big content? Like do you have any predictions?
Daniel Medwed: I think it’s both good and bad. In terms of the, the good, I think increasing access to information in general is a good thing. I mean, one thing I don’t know, that I bet you know and a lot of your peers know, is whether people are more informed about the criminal legal process because of cases like Luigi Mangione.
In other words, are there people who are fans of Luigi Mangione and as a part of their fandom have learned about the law, learned about criminal justice, learned about the difference between state court and federal court, learned about how the, the death penalty works or doesn’t work? That’s a good thing.
You know, the bad thing, of course, is for one, could it breed copycats? If people are putting Luigi Mangione up on a pedestal, are there other people out there thinking, hey, vigilante justice is okay? My issue is X. Maybe I should kill someone to advance the conversation in X. That would be a very, very bad thing, right?
In addition, another bad thing is, um, the meme isn’t always accurate. The description online isn’t always accurate. One thing we know has been a real issue in recent years is how do we figure out fact from something that’s not a fact? How do we verify the legitimacy of information?
Morgan Sung: Yeah. Well thanks so much for joining us, Daniel.
Daniel Medwed: Thank you, Morgan. It was my pleasure.
Morgan Sung: Here’s where Luigi Mangione’s case stands today. During the first week of December, around the one year anniversary of the shooting, Luigi appeared in New York state court, where he faces murder charges. This pre-trial hearing determined whether the evidence gathered during his arrest could be used in trial. His defense team argued that his backpack was searched without a warrant and therefore the 3D printed gun and handwritten notes allegedly found when he was arrested should be excluded.
His most ardent supporters came prepared. Some of them have been attending his court appearances since last December. For this recent hearing, some fans began camping in front of the courthouse days in advance. They wore sashes that said “Free Luigi” and traded handmade beaded friendship bracelets, like Swifties did during the Eras tour. Those who couldn’t get into the courtroom rallied outside, even as temperatures dipped below freezing.
Luigi is scheduled to appear in New York’s federal court in January. Prosecutors in that case are seeking the death penalty. We’ll be keeping an eye on the proceedings, but even if we close these tabs today, his fans, at least, will keep theirs open.
Ok, now, let’s close all these tabs.
Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Chris Egusa, and edited by Jen Chien.
Close All Tabs producer is Maya Cueva. Chris Hambrick is our editor. Chris Egusa is our senior editor, and composed our theme song and credits music. Additional music by APM. Brendan Willard is our audio engineer.
Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is KQED’s director of podcasts. Katie Sprenger is our podcast operations manager, and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our editor-in-chief.
Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.
Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink Dustsilver K-84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron Red switches.
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