Courts

Healthcare Companies Screwed Over So Many People That It’s Hard To Find Luigi Mangione A Neutral Jury

Maybe they can find a couple of cryogenically frozen folks to thaw and make a fair jury.

By Chris Williams on April 22, 2025 3:17 pm
(Photo by Curtis Means-Pool/Getty Images)

You’ve heard about Luigi Mangione? Of course you have — his likeness has been all over your Twitter feed, Saturday Night Live, and those Altar Candles that were in vogue for a little while. And while that shared knowledge base might make it easy for you to throw #FreeLuigi on your dating profile to show off your politics and whimsy, it makes it damn hard to compile a neutral jury to adjudicate at trial. A recent ABA Journal article gets into the details of how to select a jury when you’re dealing with such a high-profile defendant:

“This will be a tough one,” says Don Worley, the president and managing attorney with personal injury law firm McDonald Worley in its Houston office…. “It is tough because it will be hard to find a potential juror who has not heard about this. Most will have already made up their minds about which side they are on before they arrive at the courthouse,” Worley says.

To be clear, there’s been a great deal of PR for either outcome of Mangione’s case. There’s the obvious contingent of people who have been negatively impacted by insurance companies that see Luigi as a hero: about 60% of Americans have recently reported problems with their insurance companies. But it doesn’t stop there! The fear of being screwed over by healthcare companies in the future was enough to earn Luigi a massive amount of vigilante brownie points: I have no sources but I’m willing to bet that many a shot was drank in Luigi’s honor after Blue Cross decided to mysteriously roll back their pay for your own anesthesia policy change the day after Brian Thompson was killed. People haven’t just been voicing their support, they’ve been throwing their dollars in too — Luigi recently used $300k raised by grassroots supporters to help fund his legal team. What if one of those paying supporters ends up on the jury somehow?

On the other side, you have all of obvious jury-tainting behavior from the state. You can’t start a list like this without Eric Adams. There was the conclusory address of Luigi as a terrorist that got broadcasted across the world:

The perp walk Eric Adams staged like a high budget Superman movie for political clout:

And if that wasn’t enough, there was the incessant fanboying from the NYPD themselves that helped add to the Luigi cult following:

The article goes on to suggest that the questions meant for use in voir dire can be honed beforehand in focus groups. And while that does make sense, the old adage “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face” comes to mind. Can you just imagine the actual voir dire?

Prosecution: Hey, we should strike juror 14.
Defense: Why, cause he’s Italian?!
Prosecution: No, because he’s wearing a Deny Defend Depose hoodie and has a “Free Luigi” tattoo on his neck.
Potential Juror: What do you want from me? I’m from Brooklyn!

There’s also the recommendation to cull the prospective jury members’ social media presence for mentions of Luigi. Valid, but who hasn’t said something online about the case? Warned your friends about the importance of not assuming Luigi did it because you believe in due process? That might be a strike. Shared or haha’d a segment with Bill Burr adamantly saying Free Luigi? Too much of a very real jury nullification risk — strike ’em. Share this gif a little too close to December 4th?:

Thank you for your time, the door is on your left.

The prosecution has a serious challenge on their hands. For the sake of due process, I wish them and Luigi the best with finding a neutral and impartial jury. They’re all going to need it.

What Can Luigi Mangione’s Trial Tell Us About Unbiased Juries? [ABA Journal]

Earlier: There’s Fresh Interest In Informing Potential Jurors About Jury Nullification

Luigi Mangione Pulls $300K From Grassroots Funds To Bolster His Case

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who is learning to swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.