#luigi-mangione

#luigi-mangione

Yes, it's a fight over a backpack - how it was seized, how it was searched, and whether the gun and notebook found inside will be tossed or kept as knockout-blow evidence in a future murder trial. But Luigi Mangione's ongoing evidence suppression hearing, playing out for two weeks in a Manhattan courtroom, is more than that. The serious legal battle features an often amusing undercard bout: repeatedsparring over nothing more than the naming of things.

In the days following Luigi Mangione's arrest, guards at the Pennsylvania prison where he was detained were told not to take their eyes off him, lest an Epstein-style situation occur with the most high-profile murder suspect in the U.S. on their watch, a Manhattan judge heard Monday. The testimony was provided by Correction Officer Tomas Rivers from SCI Huntingdon, Pa., at an evidence hearing in the Manhattan district attorney's case against Mangione,

The public court schedule only says that Mangione is scheduled to be in court on Monday, December 1. The request for five pairs of socks signals that Mangione's defense team could be bracing for a possible Monday-through-Friday hearing lasting the entirety of the first week of December - including December 4, the one-year anniversary of Thompson's shooting on a Manhattan sidewalk.

In a May letter that was recently verified by TMZ, Mangione wrote that he downloaded "a bunch" of Taylor Swift and Charli XCX songs to his tablet to "see what all the hype was about" after a "phony" list circulated online saying that he listened to those artists. "So I'm walking laps on the top tier of my unit listening to 'cardigan' by TSwift, when one of the other inmates, 'King,' calls me over to see what I'm listening to," Mangione recalled.

The firmly worded order out of Manhattan singles out two DOJ officials who retweeted President Donald Trump's televised remarks on Friday and Saturday. "He shot someone in the back as clear as you're looking at me," Trump had said of Mangione in a Fox interview. "He shot him right in the middle of the back - instantly dead. This is a sickness." Trump's remarks, posted on the White House-affiliated X.com account Rapid Response 47, were then reposted by DOJ spokesman Chad Gilmartin and by Brian Nieves, a chief of staff at Main Justice.

The first people in line on Tuesday, I was told, started camping out on the sidewalk two days ago. Luigi Mangione, the man accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024, was due in court at 9AM ET for a hearing in one of three concurrent criminal cases against him. And this time everyone was prepared for the mayhem: the signs, the fans, the livestreamers, the protests, the media circus.

Most wore Covid masks, along with hoods and shades - anything to obscure their identities.

This will be a tough one," says Don Worley, the president and managing attorney... It is tough because it will be hard to find a potential juror who has not heard about this.