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While accused assassin Luigi Mangione has thousands of supporters online and attracts demonstrators outside of his court appearances, their push for “jury nullification” in his pending cases may be a long shot, experts tell Fox News Digital.
The 26-year-old former Ivy Leaguer is accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a Minnesota father of two, outside a shareholder conference in New York City on Dec. 4. Mangione allegedly kept journals that described his plans for the attack, his intent to send a message and condemnations of the health insurance industry.
“This case is not a Prohibition case nor a draft-dodging situation — it was an outright premeditated murder,” said Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and criminal justice professor at Penn State Lehigh Valley. “My only concern is that Alvin Bragg has lost a number of high profile cases and was just dealt another blow with the dismissal of the terror charge in this case.”
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A New York judge found no basis for terror-related charges in the alleged assassination case and threw them out Tuesday — taking first-degree murder and a potential life without parole sentence off the table. Mangione still faces a second-degree murder charge, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, with the potential for parole.
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Many of Mangione’s defenders have noted he is considered innocent until proven guilty in the eyes of the law. Jury nullification would be the result of jurors delivering a verdict based on their own ideology rather than the law at trial.
In addition to Mangione’s widespread support, she noted that New York also has an “extreme emotional disturbance” defense that lawyers can use to gin up sympathy for their client and to attempt to have the severity of charges reduced. As an affirmative defense, Mangione’s lawyers would have to convince jurors of such an argument at trial, she said.
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Even if jury nullification doesn’t happen, however, the defense only needs one juror on their side to force a mistrial, according to Linda Kenney Baden, a high-profile defense attorney whose clients have included Aaron Hernandez and Casey Anthony.
“This defense is compatible with trying to find [one or more] jurors who can hang the jury,” she told Fox News Digital. “But this is a premeditated murder, so NY will retry him over and over.”
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Separately, federal prosecutors are warning that he was inspiring support for other attacks, too.
“Certain quarters of the public — who openly identify as acolytes of the defendant — have increasingly begun to view violence as an acceptable, or even necessary, substitute for reasoned political disagreement,” federal prosecutors wrote to a New York judge on Aug. 27.
Specifically, they mentioned a mass shooting on Park Avenue.
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“On July 28, 2025, Shane Tamura brought an assault rifle to a Manhattan office building, a short distance away from where Mangione had killed Thompson,” prosecutors wrote. “Tamura shot and killed four people, including an off-duty police officer, an executive of a financial services firm, and a security guard, and he injured others, including an employee of the National Football League (“NFL”). Like Mangione, Tamura left behind a piece of evidence for investigators to find, blaming the NFL and football for causing chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Almost immediately, members of the public sympathetic to the defendant touted Tamura’s actions as a laudable continuation of the defendant’s philosophy.”
Fourteen days after prosecutors filed this memo with a federal court in Manhattan, a sniper shot and killed Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk at a speaking event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
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Like Mangione, the suspect in that case was accused of writing messages on bullets used in the attack. Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old from southern Utah, faces aggravated murder and other charges in connection with the attack.
As of Wednesday afternoon, nearly 35,000 Mangione supporters had donated more than $1.2 million toward his defense in the three criminal proceedings he faces in New York, in Pennsylvania and federally.
The cover photo for the fundraiser is an image of Mangione’s arrival in New York City after he was flown from Pennsylvania, where police captured him, to an airport on suburban Long Island. Wearing shackles and an orange jumpsuit, he is flanked by dozens of officers wearing NYPD and FBI gear.
His supporters have subsequently shown up in force outside his Manhattan court hearings as the murder case proceeds, many of them dressed up like Nintendo’s Luigi character and carrying signs. One notable sign present Tuesday, when the judge tossed state-level terror charges, read simply, “Jury Nullification.”
But while the group cheered news of Judge Gregory Carro’s decision, their broader hopes could be wishful thinking.
“Jury nullification could always be an issue, especially with how this kid has come to encapsulate so many progressive gripes against corporations and the insurance industry, but I don’t think even Manhattan criminal justice has been that completely defanged,” Paul Mauro, a former NYPD inspector and Fox News contributor, previously told Fox News Digital. “Yes, this is the venue that got us Alvin Bragg, but this is also the venue in which 12 ordinary New Yorkers acquitted Daniel Penny.”
Following up Wednesday, he said he’s still doubtful jury nullification would be a problem.
“[It’s] always possible, but I still lean hard against it,” he said. “But this is the Mamdani NYC, so anything’s possible.”
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