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For those who need an intuitive infotainment system and a dashboard designed with minimalism in mind, Polestar 3 is for drivers who won't settle for anything less. Book a test drive for Polestar 3 at polestar.com. Hey everyone, Ellie here, wishing you a happy, let's just say end of the week. I don't know for sure whether we'll release this on Thursday or the usual Friday, so I will give a lawyerly hedge. What a strange week.
The story of the murder of the CEO in Manhattan has really taken off and taken over in a way I never expected. And as we'll discuss in a moment, in ways that I never expected. I'll just give you a little behind the scenes. The morning this thing happened, which was last Wednesday, I had been sent down to Washington, DC by CNN because we were going to do the entire morning's worth of coverage.
on the Supreme Court oral argument on the issue around transgender rights, probably the biggest case of this term. We were going to cover the oral argument the whole morning on a rolling basis. And as we were getting ready to go on air, we saw this headline pop up, CEO murdered in Midtown Manhattan. And I will tell you, we, of course, had to play amateur detective, speculative detective. The first thought was it must have been some sort of random event.
maybe a mugging or something like that. Turned out that was not the case. My thought at the time was, This had to be a hit of some type. Somebody must have had a beef or a corporate beef with this guy and someone must have hired some hitman. Maybe that's just a reflection of my mob experience. Ended up it was something, well, kind of different, as we'll discuss in a moment.
Since this person has been found, the murderer, it has gone in a really unexpected direction. And that's what I want to talk about today. I really want to hear what you all think, by the way. I love all your input, but definitely on this case, why are people so fascinated by this? Are they off base here? Is there something to it that I'm missing? So send me your letters, thoughts, questions, comments.
to lettersatcafe.com. I would love to get an actual letter, but I guess you can't send an actual letter like we grew up with in the 80s and 90s to lettersatcafe.com. We call it letters anyway. I don't know. Anyway, here we go with this week's piece.
Okay, quick. No Googling. What's the name of the CEO who was gunned down on the street in Manhattan last week? Now, I'll be honest. I've been covering this case since it happened. And even I had to sneak a peek. It's Brian Thompson, by the way. Okay, now. What's the name of the shooter? Got that right away, right? Luigi Mangione, of course. What a name. My goodness. It's almost like made for a movie. Mangione committed a brazen sneak attack murder of an innocent victim who he had never met.
and who never saw him coming. He shot a 50-year-old man in the back, leaving a wife without her husband and two kids without a father. By any rational calculation, he's a grotesque villain. I'll spare you further sermonizing. It's not complicated, really. Yet this killer has seemingly become an object of wide public infatuation. You've surely seen the memes and the social media posts already.
And I'd rather not promote them further on this platform. To boil it down, the affection for this guy falls under one or both of two headings. And I'm going to put these in scare quotes. First of all, he's a modern day Robin Hood standing up against corporate greed. And two. He's hot.
Again, scare quotes around both of those things. The first of those is preposterous and juvenile and dangerous, not to mention some Robin Hood here coming from a rich family and Ivy League schooling. I'm being glib on point two about his appearance, but it's in our- arguably a factor, just glance at any social media outlet. And let's be real, if the killer happened to be a heavyset 56-year-old with a paunch and a gray ponytail, he'd have no fans at all. The social media deification...
is mostly silly games for now. There's a giddy subversiveness to celebrating the mysterious killer who laid in wait and then befuddled the cops for a few days with Monopoly money and a COVID mask. He's the Joker. But someday, maybe a year from now or so, things will get more serious. The case will go to trial. in Manhattan, where prosecutors must convince 12 jurors unanimously to find Mangione guilty of murder and to lock him up for much or potentially all of his remaining life. At first glance,
The risk of jury nullification is elevated here. If you catch one purveyor of Mangione fanfic, and yes, it is a thing, that jury can hang. But if I was prosecuting this case, I wouldn't be especially concerned about that possibility. Prosecutors have two potent safeguards. First.
The jury selection process is designed to filter out people who are genuinely biased for or against a defendant. It's not perfect, of course, but it does eliminate outliers. Some who genuinely sympathize with the defendant will self-identify. quite the same scenario, but plenty of potential jurors pulled themselves off the Trump hush money trial, which by the way, was held in the same courthouse where this trial will eventually happen because they felt they could not be fair.
Beyond that, potential jurors will be pressed by the judge and the attorneys on their feelings about the defendant and whether they'd be able to render impartial judgment. The judge will remove some for cause in the lingo, while the parties can then eliminate others using their... And you can bet prosecutors and defense attorneys alike will pour over each potential juror's social media feeds, which should provide a clear indication of any pro-killer sentiment.
Now the second safeguard is the trial process itself, which is more solemn and ritualistic than you might realize. Imagine walking into a criminal courthouse in downtown Manhattan. As you enter, you pass through security gates and magnetometers, staffed by armed guards. You're herded together with others, and eventually, if your number's called, you're walked up to the courtroom. You answer a barrage of questions from the judge and the lawyers. You vow that...
you'll be fair and you're seated on the jury. You raise your right hand and you take an oath to decide the case impartially and based solely on the evidence presented in court. Over weeks, you sit through evidence about how the defendant stalked his prey.
shot him in the back and left him to bleed out on a cold Manhattan sidewalk. At the trial's conclusion, the judge solemnly instructs you from up high on the bench on the specific elements of the law that you must consider. You retired to the jury room with 11 other civilians. to do your sworn duty. Are you really going to fib your way through the entire process and then hijack the verdict because of some juvenile infatuation with a killer? Even allowing.
that the murder of Thompson has evoked genuine frustration aimed at the insurance industry, any rational adult can readily reconcile I strongly dislike the insurance industry and think it's unfair and poorly run with This defendant murdered that innocent victim. Those thoughts are not mutually exclusive.
Our courts are imperfect, heaven knows, but they do tend to impose a healthy dose of seriousness and conformity. I've seen gangsters, cops, billionaires, politicians, even prosecutors brought down to size in the courtroom. Egos tend to deflate. once their possessors become part of the trial process. We've all known that guy at work. You know, the guy who receives a jury duty notice and he vows to go into court and act out or claim he's biased or put on some wacky show to get dismissed.
Take it from somebody who's picked a slew of juries. Nobody actually does that. It's one thing for Mangione's admirers to pop off on social media and post jokey memes or even to express sincere, if misguided, empathy or support for the guy. but a criminal trial has a way of forcing people to get serious. Thanks for listening, everyone. Stay safe and stay informed.