Defense attorneys for alleged CEO killer Luigi Mangione said Thursday in a new court filing that the murder indictment a state grand jury returned against him should be dismissed due to double jeopardy and other alleged violations.
The indictment should be dismissed “because concurrent state and federal prosecutions violate the Double Jeopardy Clause, the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause and Mr. Mangione’s constitutional rights against self-incrimination, to meaningfully defend himself, to a fair and impartial jury and to the effective assistance of counsel,” defense attorneys wrote.
Defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo said in the filing that “prosecutorial one-upmanship” resulted in Mangione facing state and federal charges in New York and separate charges in Pennsylvania.
The point being that you can’t be tried for the same crime by different courts at the same time, one court has to take precedence and run the full process to its conclusion. Also the “Not Guilty” plea isn’t to say he didn’t commit a crime but that they won’t admit “Guilty” to what has been proposed as the crime(s) and then be instantly hit with whatever the prosecution wants, i.e. death penalty. The process needs to play out legitimately, and will likely lead to conviction but of crime(s) and with a sentence that is more acceptable to the defence.
If you shoplifted and then are charged with a laundry list of crimes in addition to and more severe than theft, that would result in vastly more severe consequences, you’re probably not going to put in a “Guilty” plea for that list.