So, Mangione assassinated Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare, the US health insurance company with the highest denial rate in the industry.
It’s pretty clear he did it, he was found with a manifesto which amounts to a confession.
“To the Feds, I’ll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there. I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allwed them to get away with it. Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”
The problem for the prosecution is simple: most people think the assassination was justified. All it takes is one juror to hang on and refuse to convict.
Jury nullification is legal, but it’s not legal to tell jurors they have the right.
But jury nullification is part of the “deal”, the social contract. It’s one reason why people accused of a crime have the right to a jury trial. We all know that the law and justice aren’t the same thing. We gave up the right for private vengeance because it lead to feuds and violence, but in exchange for giving it up we expect the “justice” system to operate in a way which leads to a better society, not a worse one. We expect the law to protect us.
Mangione killed one person. Thompson is a mass murderer. Mangione is a criminal because it’s against the law to kill people who kill by spreadsheet, but it’s legal to kill by spreadsheet.
When the law doesn’t work; when it allows mass murder, there will be some people who take the law into their own hands. As nasty as it is, this is one the real “checks and balances”. If elites won’t work for the common good, if they loot and impoverish and kill too much the masses always have the ability, if not the legal right to fight back. America’s founders were pretty clear about this.
“when the first principles of civil society are violated, and the rights of the whole people are invaded, the common forms of municipal law are not to be regarded. Men may betake themselves to the law of nature.”
Elites are supposed to work for the benefit of all. There must be a case that what they do benefits the majority in society. When it doesn’t there must be some force of recourse.
Mangione broke the law. He almost certainly killed Thompson.
But did he break the law of nature?