You actually have it backwards, it’s innocent until proven guilty and so far the prosecutors weren’t able to produce any usable evidence. So no one has to prove that Luigi didn’t do it just like no one has to prove you or I didn’t do it
And if I were a judge or on the jury, I’d be looking for definitive evidence. But that doesn’t really matter for the question I’m asking. Regardless whether Luigi did it or someone else did, it wouldn’t change my opinion of Luigi or the crime.
I’m not trying to adjudicate guilt or innocence here. I’m trying to find out if there’s something I’m not aware of. Has Luigi or his lawyer actually denied that Luigi did it? I know they’ve pushed back against the evidence, but have they come out and said “Luigi didn’t do it, this is where he was when it happened, this is why we know it wasn’t him?”
Fighting the evidence on procedural grounds and trying to discredit the prosecution is what a good lawyer does when they know they can’t prove their client’s innocence. They try to introduce doubt for the prosecution’s case. But if they could prove he didn’t do it, they’d just do that.
Again, I’m not trying to decide whether Luigi is a good guy or whether I should support him. If I were on the jury and Luigi got up there and swore up and down he did it and produced documentary footage of him doing it, I’d still be pushing for jury nullification. That’s not my point here. I’m trying to understand why so many people online seem so absolutely certain that this is a frameup when, as far as I can see, nobody connected to the case on the defense side is acting like it is…
Basically, right now the prosecution hasn’t actually provided any evidence that he did it. What little evidence they HAVE provided has tainted chain of custody, and was hilariously late. The defense STILL doesn’t actually have all the documentation and shit they were legally supposed to have like two months ago.
And by late, I mean that instead of giving the defense their legally required discovery documentation, the prosecution and mayor were grandstanding on TV and filming a documentary about how he ‘totally did it.’ (which is prejudicing potential juries).
They’ve also spied on his private communications with his lawyer, they never read him his miranda rights, the chain of custody of his belongings was broken (and a gun was, at minimum, planted- the gun was not in the backpack during the illegal search on scene, but the gun suddenly appeared inside the backpack at the station after chain of custody was broken.)
They’ve also changed their story several times, especially about the backpack and where it was found and what was in it. Finally, the pictures they have of the supposed shooter A: don’t actually look like Luigi Mangione to me and B: only prove that someone was at a hostel a few miles away something like two weeks before the shooting which is… utterly useless as proof.
tl;dr: People think it’s a frameup because they’ve already all but admitted to planting a gun on him, and they’ve broken basically every judicial process involved in a fair trial. The defense doesn’t want to push some parts of their argument too soon, because they need to save that for other arguments in the proceedings, not things easily disproven or discarded by less important proof. They have to play this as super carefully and by the book as possible, and that means not just shotgunning your arguments.
This is going to be as much about having the better sounding argument as it will be having the exonerating proof because of how politicized this case has become.
EDIT: I should also note- part of why the defense team isn’t trotting out all this information about where he could have been or what he might have been doing is because it straight up isn’t that part of the trial yet. As I said with the documentaries and interviews, the prosecution is doing a lot of prejudicing the jury, which should be called out by the judge, but hasn’t been. It might be that they are concerned that if they try to fight back, however, they WILL have the judge go after them for the same thing. They might also be saving and documenting all the occurrences of the prosecution doing that, in order to deliver it all at once in a massive, too-large-to-ignore package.
This is wild speculation but maybe his legal team are keeping that as an ace in the hole? The trial hasn’t even started, so why would they give the prosecution so much time to prepare for their strategy by publicly grandstanding about it?
Discovery works both ways. If you want to present an alibi defense at trial, you have to provide the prosecutor with information about that alibi. Defendants have to provide a list of witnesses they intend to call, and the prosecutor may depose those witnesses beforehand. There are certain exceptions - for example, if a prosecution witness lies on the stand, the defense may call a witness not on the list to rebut that witness’s statements and impugn their credibility.
Basically, neither the prosecution nor the defense are allowed a “hole card”. The “hand” is played open.
You actually have it backwards, it’s innocent until proven guilty and so far the prosecutors weren’t able to produce any usable evidence. So no one has to prove that Luigi didn’t do it just like no one has to prove you or I didn’t do it
And if I were a judge or on the jury, I’d be looking for definitive evidence. But that doesn’t really matter for the question I’m asking. Regardless whether Luigi did it or someone else did, it wouldn’t change my opinion of Luigi or the crime.
I’m not trying to adjudicate guilt or innocence here. I’m trying to find out if there’s something I’m not aware of. Has Luigi or his lawyer actually denied that Luigi did it? I know they’ve pushed back against the evidence, but have they come out and said “Luigi didn’t do it, this is where he was when it happened, this is why we know it wasn’t him?”
Fighting the evidence on procedural grounds and trying to discredit the prosecution is what a good lawyer does when they know they can’t prove their client’s innocence. They try to introduce doubt for the prosecution’s case. But if they could prove he didn’t do it, they’d just do that.
Again, I’m not trying to decide whether Luigi is a good guy or whether I should support him. If I were on the jury and Luigi got up there and swore up and down he did it and produced documentary footage of him doing it, I’d still be pushing for jury nullification. That’s not my point here. I’m trying to understand why so many people online seem so absolutely certain that this is a frameup when, as far as I can see, nobody connected to the case on the defense side is acting like it is…
Basically, right now the prosecution hasn’t actually provided any evidence that he did it. What little evidence they HAVE provided has tainted chain of custody, and was hilariously late. The defense STILL doesn’t actually have all the documentation and shit they were legally supposed to have like two months ago.
And by late, I mean that instead of giving the defense their legally required discovery documentation, the prosecution and mayor were grandstanding on TV and filming a documentary about how he ‘totally did it.’ (which is prejudicing potential juries).
They’ve also spied on his private communications with his lawyer, they never read him his miranda rights, the chain of custody of his belongings was broken (and a gun was, at minimum, planted- the gun was not in the backpack during the illegal search on scene, but the gun suddenly appeared inside the backpack at the station after chain of custody was broken.)
They’ve also changed their story several times, especially about the backpack and where it was found and what was in it. Finally, the pictures they have of the supposed shooter A: don’t actually look like Luigi Mangione to me and B: only prove that someone was at a hostel a few miles away something like two weeks before the shooting which is… utterly useless as proof.
tl;dr: People think it’s a frameup because they’ve already all but admitted to planting a gun on him, and they’ve broken basically every judicial process involved in a fair trial. The defense doesn’t want to push some parts of their argument too soon, because they need to save that for other arguments in the proceedings, not things easily disproven or discarded by less important proof. They have to play this as super carefully and by the book as possible, and that means not just shotgunning your arguments.
This is going to be as much about having the better sounding argument as it will be having the exonerating proof because of how politicized this case has become.
EDIT: I should also note- part of why the defense team isn’t trotting out all this information about where he could have been or what he might have been doing is because it straight up isn’t that part of the trial yet. As I said with the documentaries and interviews, the prosecution is doing a lot of prejudicing the jury, which should be called out by the judge, but hasn’t been. It might be that they are concerned that if they try to fight back, however, they WILL have the judge go after them for the same thing. They might also be saving and documenting all the occurrences of the prosecution doing that, in order to deliver it all at once in a massive, too-large-to-ignore package.
This is wild speculation but maybe his legal team are keeping that as an ace in the hole? The trial hasn’t even started, so why would they give the prosecution so much time to prepare for their strategy by publicly grandstanding about it?
Discovery works both ways. If you want to present an alibi defense at trial, you have to provide the prosecutor with information about that alibi. Defendants have to provide a list of witnesses they intend to call, and the prosecutor may depose those witnesses beforehand. There are certain exceptions - for example, if a prosecution witness lies on the stand, the defense may call a witness not on the list to rebut that witness’s statements and impugn their credibility.
Basically, neither the prosecution nor the defense are allowed a “hole card”. The “hand” is played open.