• ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 days ago

      The evidence against him appears to be that the guy who murdered the CEO might have similar eyebrows to Luigi Mangione, but it’s hard to tell from the security video. There’s nothing else that puts him at the scene. They can say it’s him all they want, but they’ll have to reveal some better evidence if they want us to believe it.

      • Wrench@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Didn’t he have the burner gun still on him? Honestly asking, I know a lot of disinformation tends to go out early, and I haven’t followed up on verified facts.

        • Steve@startrek.website
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          4 days ago

          Thats what they said, which is extraordinarily suspicious. The weapon is to be disposed of, literally everyone knows this. And to carry it to another state for days?

        • ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 days ago

          They said he had a gun, but a) I’m not convinced of the accuracy of techniques like striation matching which are used to determine whether a bullet was fired by a specific gun, and b) it could have been planted by the police, even if it was the murder weapon (they might have found it in NYC, lied about not finding it, and then planted it on their preferred suspect to construct an evidentiary link where none existed).

          • Wrench@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            The whole gun planting take seems like conspiratory nonsense to me. And I’ll trust the forensic science on the striations.

            • underisk@lemmy.ml
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              4 days ago

              the famously rigorous and well tested field of forensic “science”.

              • Wrench@lemmy.world
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                4 days ago

                Rofl. OK. So forensics is fake science now, too? Because it could implicate someone you’d rather see go free?

                How is this kind of mental gymnastics any different than the covid deniers.

                • Chip_Rat@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  I am all for science but yeah, forensics shouldn’t be considered a science. It has some scientific elements. And a lot of bullshit.

                • Baylahoo@lemmy.world
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                  4 days ago

                  It’s famously subjective. My highschool taught it and showed how you could push any narrative as long as the evidence was gray. It’s almost always gray in these situations.

                • Pup Biru@aussie.zone
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                  4 days ago

                  a lot of forensics is legitimately junk science that’s been disproven by much better science

                • underisk@lemmy.ml
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                  4 days ago

                  tacking the word “science” on to something doesn’t make it scientific. much of it is based off of wild assumptions and “common sense” that was never actually studied or confirmed through testing. its about as scientific as alchemy.

            • Infynis@midwest.social
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              4 days ago

              It does seem weird to me that he would still have all the evidence on him in Middle-of-Nowhere PA, a couple days later, but I mostly just talk about that as a way to point out this is all still allegations

              • Wrench@lemmy.world
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                4 days ago

                Eh. He could have intended to use it again, or didn’t find an opportune time to ditch/destroy it. Or maybe he’s not the master People’s assassin that everyone wants him to be.

            • Machinist@lemmy.world
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              4 days ago

              I don’t have a source, but I’ve been hearing for a while now that there is a lot of pseudo science in matching barrels to bullets.

              Polygraphs ended up being pretty much complete bullshit and roadside drug tests are real bad about false positives.

              IDK, it’s basically a tool mark. I’ve looked at those under microscopes. They vary a whole lot when things are running well. I would think you could only really match something if there was a distinctive abnormal feature.

    • Nougat@fedia.io
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      4 days ago

      If you’re going to court for any criminal charge, you plead not guilty. The DA is going to have laid the strongest charges they believe they can get a conviction on, but there is always risk in going to trial. The prosecution generally cares a lot more about getting a conviction than what charge that conviction is on, or what penalty that conviction carries.

      So. You’re caught dead to rights, charged with a crime. If you plead guilty, you are also waiving your right to trial, and taking whatever conviction and (probably) penalty the prosecution advises the judge.

      On the other hand, if you plead not guilty, now you have the opportunity to accept a plea deal from the prosecution - changing your plea to guilty - which would include what charge and what penalty. Depending on what you’ve done, this can save you a lot of money, reduce or eliminate probation or incarceration time, or take the death penalty off the table.

      You can always change your plea from not guilty to guilty. You can’t do that the other way around. Whenever you see headlines about “So-and-so pleads not guilty,” that doesn’t (in most cases) mean they intend to beat the charge. It’s just what you do.

      • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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        4 days ago

        Another huge, important, but subtle distinction to make here is that the trial is not to decide whether you did the thing. It’s not always a mystery who perpetrated an alleged crime. Even if you pull out a gun and shoot somebody on the 50-yard-line at the Super Bowl, and 300 million people see it, they can’t just take you off to prison for murder. They have to give you a trial to determine whether you violated the law.

        There’s a thing called an affirmative defense, as in, “yes, I did the thing, but it wasn’t a crime, because…” If you can, say, convince a jury that you’re a time traveler, the ref was going to make a bad call in the 4th quarter that cost your team the Super Bowl win, and that justified shooting him, well, then it wasn’t a crime. That’s what a jury is ultimately charged with deciding.

        This is not to say that Magione’s attorney plans to present an affirmative defense, just that there are a number of good reasons to plead not guilty, even if it’s 100% certain you did the thing.

        (Edit: Typo.)

        • lad@programming.dev
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          2 days ago

          Judicial system working like this (including the previous comments about pleas) is something I would’ve probably doubted if I read it in a fiction, but here we are

    • CascadianGiraffe@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Guilty or not, always plead not guilty at the start. You’ll often have a chance to accept a better plea deal before trial if you want. Or you can go to trial.

      Unless you are looking forward to serving time (free food, warm bed, access to healthcare).

      • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        4 days ago

        NYC residents:

        If you are picked for a jury, I know it can be annoying and take time out of your busy life. But honestly, it is the last purely democratic area of our life. The jury has the power to ensure the laws are fairly and equally applied.

        Remember that your job as jury is to not only find the facts of the case but also to make sure that the charges fit the crime.

        There is one more job you have: is the law correct in this specific crime?

        Judges won’t tell you this. Prosecutors will make you leave this choice outside the courthouse. But you have it.

        The responsibility of the jury is protected so that you cannot be held accountable or even questioned (in an official setting anyway) as to why you voted the way you did. You have the power to view the facts, know that the defendant is guilty, but vote to acquit because you believe the law is wrong in his case.

        Don’t let prosecutors or the judge trick you.

        All in Minecraft, of course.

    • dev_null@lemmy.ml
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      4 days ago

      Yeah, the absurd terrorism charges are probably possible to beat, so no reason to plead guilty to them. They are probably not questioning the murder charges, but that’s beside the point.

      • suburban_hillbilly@lemmy.ml
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        4 days ago

        I’m sure they’re contesting all of it. There isn’t a downside and a conviction depends on the state having all it’s ducks in a row, which they do fuck up sometimes.

        There is also even a real possibility that he’s innocent and they’re trying to pin it on him.

    • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
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      4 days ago

      What’s the downside exactly? Pleading guilty doesn’t really come with any upside especially if they’re putting the death penalty on the table.