New York (Predictably) Overcharging Luigi Mangione – Who Needs a Rule of Law?

A senseless act of bloodshed.  Followed by a senseless act of State lawlessness.  <Sigh>  It isn’t that people would be better if the government were…it’s that the government would simply be less bad.

New York law, like the Model Penal Code, recognizes that premeditation and deliberation (including “lying in wait”) are inapposite when it comes to murder.  Sometimes, planning makes a crime worse.  Sometimes, by contrast, it makes it less so—euthanasia is typically the paradigm of a premeditated and deliberate killing, yet it is far from being either the most depraved (deontologically) or the most dangerous (consequentially).  Traditional first-degree murder thus accepted those elements only for reasons of historic State-protective anomaly; New York law hewed back to that original intent by, for example, including the murders of judges as being first degree.

So, Luigi Mangione purposely killing Brian Thompson would be second-degree murder.  There is no special protection for CEOs in American law.  New York’s decision to make a mockery of that law by alleging the killing “terrorism” will surprise no one who follows American criminal law.  Overcharging is rampant.  But it ought to sadden anybody who cares about justice.  When the State doesn’t respect law, it is much harder to sell that anybody should.  And that, of course, is precisely the opposite of the message appropriate to these events.