Moments after Luigi Mangione was handcuffed at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s, a police officer searching his backpack found a loaded gun magazine wrapped in a pair of underwear.
The discovery, recounted in court Monday as Mangione fights to keep evidence out of his New York murder case, convinced police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, that he was the man wanted in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan five days earlier.
Jury nullification isn’t that they agreed crime wasn’t committed, but rather that they refuse to agree on a guilty verdict because they don’t agree with the law. It’s sort of a natural loophole in jury responsibility and enforcement.
See that’s kind of the trap you fall into with it. People treat jury nullification as a third option, but at the end of the day they give the verdict “not guilty” in those exact words despite how they feel about him doing the crime. If they announce “guilty but we don’t mind it” then the verdict is going to be guilty and the judge will be in charge of sentencing.