“CEO Had It Comin’ ” Doesn’t Nullify Murder

Letter to Romans: Law & Order’s “Folk Hero” treated the United Healthcare CEO’s assassination but copped out with a non-verdict. Uncharacteristically, this episode also botched the law, the real accused’s defense & the prosecutors’ understanding murder …

Folks, a cold-blooded assassination is murder without a valid defense but tell that to the authors of this Law & Order episode (S24, E16). Unlike the real accused CEO assassin, Luigi Mangione, who denied upon arrest having anything to do with the murder, they let a Hollywood defense attorney assert (& the Hollywood judge enable) a bizarre legal theory. That is, it’s ok under an obscure NY law to murder CEOs of money-grubbing health insurance companies who are “murdering tens of thousands” of people by denying their medical claims. No, the defense attorney was not an AOC look alike but just as shameless. As for the law of murder, the prosecutor futily insisted it can only be avoided by a legally recognized defense like “insanity” or “self-defense,” which clearly did not apply. Still, we had a defense entirely dependent upon “jury nullification” move forward, apparently because “most” people today agree with the murderer. Really? Perhaps just as disconcerting was the prosecution team’s questioning whether “the defense might have a point.” Please.

To the real-life accused’s credit, Mangione & his lawyers haven’t openly argued “the murdered United Healthcare CEO got what he deserved” and are trying to beat the rap instead by relentlessly challenging the evidence & court procedures. Maybe that’s why he stands to sit in an electric chair one day. But God help us if his jury simply “nullifies” aka ignores the evidence because they concluded the victim “had it coming.”

Davd Soul