In August of 1970, Charlie Manson was on trial for orchestrating a series of murders that Manson had intended to use to start a “race war.” Speaking with reporters, President Nixon offered that Manson was guilty.
Nixon quickly pulled the comments back and said that he didn’t mean to suggest that Manson was guilty, offering that everyone is presumed innocent. The damage was “done.”
One of Manson’s wild-haired attorneys seized on that statement and announced:
"If we're going to have the chief executive of this nation categorically or uncategorically speculate on people's guilt, we ought to abandon this court system. Maybe President Nixon, in a news conference, ought to determine whether these people are guilty.”
The judge denied Manson’s motion for a mistrial.
Manson was convicted. A jury wasn’t going to pay attention to what Nixon said. And it was sequestered in any event.
Fifty-five years later, President Trump offered an opinion about another high-profile murder. This one is about the murder of Brian Thompson. Trump appeared on Fox and opined that Luigi Mangione was guilty:
He shot someone in the back as clear as you’re looking at me…he shot him right in the middle of the back – instantly dead…”
A guy in the Justice Department's Public Affairs retweeted a tweet from "Rapid Response 47" with the quote. He wrote that the president was “right.” Then the Chief of Staff for a Washington D.C.-based assistant to Pam Bondi retweeted the retweet. All of those“tweets and retweets were deleted. And the chances of any of those tweets influencing a New York City-based jury pool are pretty much zero. But the damage was done.
Since Mangione's attorneys have no facts to help their client avoid conviction, they used a local criminal rule (23.1) given to the local federal prosecutors and Bondi’s office, and claimed the rule was violated by the DOJ. Apparently, the rule forbids the prosecutors from making comments that would taint the jury pool. A pretty standard pre-trial instruction.
The Biden-appointed judge, Margaret Garnett, agreed with the defense’s letter, claiming that not only were the retweets of tweets a violation of her order, but the defense attorneys were free to use the statements made by Stephen Miller and the president’s press secretary in their death penalty motion. Apparently, anyone in the administration should avoid saying mean things about their client.
The order ends with an open-ended threat. Sanctions, including money sanctions and case-specific sanctions, might be next. She also advised, as noted, that the defense can include their complaints about administration officials discussing Mangione in their motion regarding the death penalty. The prosecution is free to respond.
The Government is also directed to advise the Deputy Attorney General for the dissemination within the department as appropriate, that future violations may result in sanctions which could result in personal financial penalties, contempt of court findings or relief specific to the prosecution of this matter.
As a practical matter, the two men who “retweeted a tweet” quickly deleted them – likely because someone in the New York office noticed and told them the defense was setting their hair on fire over them. And, they did. Without any facts to help, the defense will use retweets of tweets to maybe get a dismissal, and Karoline Leavitt’s statements in an attempt to keep a needle out of Mangioni’s arm.
A recent, tragic, high-profile murder has only increased this prejudicial rhetoric. The attempts to connect Mr. Mangione with these incidents and paint him as a “left wing” violent extremist are false, prejudicial, and part of a greater political narrative that has no place in any criminal case, especially one where the death penalty is at stake. Mr. Mangione in fact does not support these violent actions, does not condone past or future political violence, nor is he in any way aligned with the group mentioned in the White House press release.
Everyone in the DOJ is apparently subject to the New York local rule. No retweets allowed, and Judge Garnett seems to be bending over backwards to give the defense ammunition to avoid a lethal injection.
Maybe this article will be cited by the defense in a future motion for dismissal.
Buckle up.
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