Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced Mangione was formally charged with one count of first-degree murder in furtherance of terrorism, two counts of second-degree murder, one of which is charged as killing as an act of terrorism, and multiple counts of criminal possession of a weapon. This is typical Bragg grandstanding for fame. He is charging him with being a terrorist so he can get the death penalty.
In New York, a first-degree murder applies only where the victim is a police officer, or the killing involves a contract hit or murder for hire. It also appies to the murder of a witness.. The other possibility that NY law would allow the death penalty is for terrorism.
This grandstanding is outrageous. If I were on the jury, I would have to vote not guilty of terrorism. This is the problem with our legal system. It allows people like Bragg to abuse the system to make a name for themselves for political purposes. This complicates the case, for they will bury the motive. Mangione did not have insurance with that company. So what made him do it? Was a friend insured or died because of United Healthcare? These would certainly not be a motive for terrorism. But Bragg is trying to manufacture a death penalty.
There have been way too many people who were innocent that prosecutors executed to become famous. Perhaps the most notorious was the Rosenberg Trial. It was April 5th, 1951, when Julius Rosenberg (1918-1953) and his 35-year-old wife Ethel (1915-1953) were sentenced to death using this Espionage Act. Today, everyone concedes that his wife’s crime was being married to Julius. The prosecutors charged her, thinking it would force him to give up his contacts, which he never did, most likely because he had none.
A co-defendant of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Morton Sobell (1917-2018), admitted for the first time that he was a Soviet spy on his deathbed at 91 after serving 30 years in prison but also made it clear that Ethel was innocent. Sobell passed military secrets to the Communists in World War II when the nations were still allies, he told the New York Times. Sobell, who served 18 years for espionage, said Julius did pass secrets, but Ethel, executed with her husband in 1953, was guilty of nothing more than being Mrs. Rosenberg.
People like Bragg are afraid of death. So, to them, the death penalty is the worst possible sentence. In prison, some people will pick a fight with someone, knowing that they will be killed. I believe the death penalty should be an option for the defendant. I would select death over life imprisonment in the blink of an eye.
Timothy J. McVeigh (1968 – 2001) was found guilty of bombing Oklahoma in retaliation for Ruby Ridge, etc. He was sentenced to death in 1997 and instructed his attorneys not to appeal. McVeigh was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001. He was executed in just over six years after the offense. McVeigh would have been constantly tormented by guards since he took out federal officers. A life sentence would have been mental torture, and death certainly was the end. I have seen people who find it more painful to stay than to leave. Some lament having to leave behind a family and justify in their minds to spare them the torment and take everyone with them.
The DEATH PENALTY is by no means the worst. Life imprisonment is far worse. You have to watch your life slowly drip away like a water torture test. People who seem to cheer the death penalty are those who fear death, so to them, that is the worst possibility, and they think that is what they should do to others. Let the defendant choose – death or life at any time during his sentence. We put down a pet to ease their pain.
