By that logic, anyone whose 401k includes an investment in an insurance company has blood on their hands. More blood, in fact, because they’re profiting off of it.
I think a big part of the lionization is that the Claims Adjuster (as some have nicknamed the killer, who is only allegedly Mangione at this point) didn’t target or endanger innocent bystanders.
But, of course, there are plenty of people out there who will miss that point, which I’ve mentioned reservations about myself earlier.
^ Yeah, that was my thought. My experience working in the Evil Insurance Empire was that we all pretty much knew where the money came from. Some were there as a career, others like me were there because it was a way to get coverage for either ourselves or our family.
Back in the day a common issue was chronic pain - insurance companies don’t want to pay to deal with it, will imply it’s imaginary or exaggerated, etc. One doctor we had on the review panel once said (paraphrasing) pain isn’t disabling, lots of people hold down a job even if they’re in constant pain which gives you an idea of the mindset of some of the decision makers.
If the guy had back surgery and it didn’t fix the problem or he still had a problem, or it created a problem, or he had constant pain… well, maybe that was a factor. But I don’t know.
It’s a defense attorney’s job to defend his client no matter how guilty looking. Given that the guy was (allegedly) on video shooting someone else in the back more than once that will necessitate some straw-clutching.
Nope - appearances are a Big Deal at that level. Executives might be more open about it these days, but even 20-30 years ago when I was working as an “administrative assistant” that sort of thing was pretty common for the upper level men, right along with high-end expensive fitted suits and all the other accoutrements of wealth and success in our society.
Even more so for any female executives.
Ah, but what if the reaction to Mangione inspires the next violent loser to target a board room instead of a kindergarten? Then the people cheering on Mangione would be responsible for saving the lives of dozens of children!
This has been said here multiple times, and I agree. But in open-and-shut cases of premeditated murder like this, my self-assigned job is to ridicule said defense attorney when they try to assert their client’s innocence despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Most of us here still remember the OJ Simpson trial. He was entitled to have his “constitutional rights” defended, too, and he got it. He got it in an abundance that ordinary citizens could never get. And the result was a historic miscarriage of justice.
If I responded that way (I haven’t), he’d probably say that a decoy “suspect” was IDed by a McD’s employee. [As others have pointed out, there have probably been dozens of unfounded “He’s here!!” calls over the past week.] The “suspect” submitted to arrest because he’s been paid to play this role; his subsequent ranting has been part of the act.
But who TOLD you all that? Mainstream media! And they got their info from corrupt cops in service to a corrupt government. Again, he hasn’t said this, but I can follow the line of thinking: Mangione didn’t have that stuff on him when he was arrested. Law enforcement brought it to the scene. Or he did have it on him, but only because Men in Black provided it. They don’t have to prove that the fingerprints match, either. I don’t know how he would explain Mangione’s pre-existing social media activity, but I’m not about to ask.
Everyone has their own excuse.
What’s the alternative to the Mangione Approach?
You say you’re married to this guy? 
Will they have blood on their hands if the next Mangione instead shoots (a) one guy, but (b) no bystanders?
O.J. Simpson didn’t prevail in his trial for the 1994 murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman because his lawyers were brilliant and presented an especially persuasive case of his innocence, or even a particularly good argument for reasonable doubt. He got a ‘not guilty’ verdict because the prosecution was shocking inept at responding to defense arguments and because a jury didn’t want to be responsible for convicting a black man in a high profile case in the wake of the the 1992 Los Angeles riots spurred by the Rodney King police beating acquittals and the light sentence in the case of the Latasha Harlins murder. A civil jury had no problem finding Simpson culpable for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.
Frankly, the legal “Dream Team” of Simpson’s defense counsel were not particularly well coordinated, and they just did the basic things any competent defense attorney would (and should) do to question the credibility of witness testimony and the applicability of the copious physical evidence. Feigning a non-fitting glove made for a stagey court moment but the defendant has literally no obligation to help the prosecution make their case, and the prosecution erred in failing to consider this tactic when they requested for Simpson to try on the gloves. I think the one legitimate argument you could make about potentially unethical misconduct were their efforts to obfuscate the reliability of then-novel science of DNA identification which bordered on misinforming the jury, but it is really the prosecution’s job to discredit the testimony of defense expert witnesses and put their own subject matter experts on the stand and lead them through questioning to explain the applicability of that forensic method at a layman’s level and why it should be considered persuasive evidence even if the defense argues otherwise, and they utterly and completely failed at that.
In this case, barring a problem with identification or the defendant being diagnosed as legally incompetent for the purpose of participating in his own defense, he will be convicted or accept a plea agreement for the 20-years-to-life penalty for premeditated murder in the State of New York. Unless, of course, the jury finds him to be a “hero” for shooting an unarmed, unaware man in the back on a public street and decides to ‘nullify’ statute law. And as much as it clearly tickles people frustrated by UHC and the for-profit health system to see some random CEO they don’t know ‘get his due’ in the form of extrajudicial killing, it is unlikely to the point of certainty that twelve jurors will sit in a court and hear testimony about a cold-blooded murder and come to the conclusion that the defendant should walk free. There is nothing a defense lawyer, “scumbag” or otherwise, is going to do to change that reality.
Stranger
Changing things lawfully and not murdering people is a proven strategy for maintaining a civilized, progressive society that improves over time.
If that approach worked we’d have already had single-payer healthcare in the USA by 30 years ago.
Competent and well-resourced.
Pair the OJ case’s facts up with an indigent client relying on a public defender and it’s a plea bargain to hard time in San Quentin.
In the aftermath of this killing, I’m sure insurance and health company CEOs are gathering to discuss disestablishing their for-profit enterprises and offering the infrastructure of their previous companies to the government to establish a comprehensive universal health care system. Of course, Dr. Mehmet Oz is going to be in charge of it, so all you are going to get are overpriced nutritional supplements and Reiki ‘energy healing’ treatments.
Stranger
Which is the way America has done things ever since the Declaration of Looking Forward to Working With the King To Develop a Bipartisan Agenda. 
Seriously, though, one of our most celebrated founding myths is the time an angry mob dressed up in gang colors and destroyed a whole bunch of corporate property.
If you are an accused perpetrator reliant upon a public defender you might as well just throw yourself on the mercy of the court because outside of a surprisingly canny blonde finance lawyer doing pro bono criminal defense on the side, most PDs barely have enough time to even fully review their cases much less establish an effective defense. But Simpson overpaid; he should have just hired Dershowitz and Neufeld, and maybe an aspiring standup comic to come up with memorable lines instead of the seven figure fee Johnny Cochrane got for a making a few newsworthy quips.
Stranger
Journalist Robert Evans thinks so.
Killing CEOs isn’t going to lead to single payer healthcare either.
The gun found on the suspect has now been definitively linked to the shell casings found on the crime scene.
So for sure, they definitely got the wrong guy and should let him go right away! 