Stan State EduCast

The Case of Luigi Mangione: Healthcare, Murder and Public Opinion with Professors Meggan Jordan & Phyllis Gerstenfeld

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This episode of the Stan State EduCast features Meggan Jordan PhD. (Professor of Sociology) and Phyllis Gerstenfeld PhD. (Criminal Justice Department Chair & Professor of Criminal Justice). 

Meggan Jordan and Phyllis Gerstenfeld join host Frankie Tovar to discuss the high-profile case of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson's murder and the upcoming trial of suspect Luigi Mangione. The crime has sparked a whirlwind of discussion both online and in the media about corporate greed, healthcare reform, and morality. This episode highlights the societal tensions surrounding for-profit healthcare, the phenomenon of cult hero status for the accused, Luigi Mangione, and the implications for legal and ethical discourse in the U.S. 

Meggan Jordan: https://www.csustan.edu/people/dr-meggan-jordan 
Phyllis Gerstenfeld: https://www.csustan.edu/people/dr-phyllis-gerstenfeld 

Produced by the Office of Strategic Communications and Marketing, edited and recorded in the KCSS studios on the campus of Stanislaus State.

On December 4, 2024, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed in Manhattan, New York. The murder was caught on CCTV cameras and the footage, which showed a hooded figure killing Thompson in a calm and methodical manner, quickly spread online. The scene looked like something out of a movie and those who watched it had many questions. Was this a professional hit? Why was this CEO targeted? And who is this masked assailant that seemingly vanished into thin air? Five days later, on December 9, 2024, a 26 year old Maryland native named Luigi Mangione was arrested at a McDonald's restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He was allegedly found with materials linking him to the murder and was subsequently indicted and charged with several crimes, including first degree murder and terrorism. It's the kind of criminal case that typically engrosses society, a public murder of a high profile individual. But as news coverage and public discourse has shown, the reaction and sentiment from the general public has been anything but typical. Almost immediately, and to the shock of many, there seemed to be an overwhelming amount of support for the assailant instead of universal condemnation of the murder. Seen as someone who struck a blow against a morally corrupt insurance system by thousands online, Luigi Mangione has achieved a modern day Fault Carroll status in their eyes. Perhaps not seen since the days of John Dillinger or Pretty Boy Floyd. It's a fascinating case that has sparked discussions about corporate greed, class and the right to health care, among other things. And to further these discussions Today, we have two esteemed guests from Stan State, Dr. Meggan Jordan of the Sociology Department and Dr. Phyllis Gerstenfeld of the Criminal Justice Department. You're listening to the Stan State Educast. Produced on the campus of stanisaw. So before we get into this discussion, I think it's a good opportunity for you to introduce yourselves to the listeners out there and tell us how did you get here on Stan State in your current roles as professors? I have a law degree from University of Nebraska Lincoln and I also have a PhD in psychology from University of Nebraska Lincoln. And I combined those two together into my interest in criminal justice. I've been teaching criminal justice at stan State since 1993, so for a really long time. And my primary areas of interest include hate crimes and extremism. I joined stan State in 2014. I have a background in medical sociology. Before I joined Stan State, I worked in the Department of Veterans affairs for seven years where I was a health scientist and conducted healthcare research and health services research. And my current areas of interest right now is related to misinformation online. And that came about because during the pandemic noticed that there was a lot of healthcare misinformation out there. And I teach a class in medical sociology where students and I learn to get learn about the healthcare system together. So that's kind of how I got here. And I'm looking forward to your insights. I think you are perfect guests for this topic. And again, we're talking about the killing of Brian Thompson, the UnitedHealthcare CEO, and the alleged assailant, Luigi Mangione. You know, just right off the bat, what were your initial reactions to this crime when it hit the airwaves or the interwebs? Because it seemed like the video was available for everyone to watch almost immediately. Well, for me, it was kind of like you were saying, like a movie, almost to the point where, you know, because we had the video and then we had a manhunt, right. And also this unique kind of situation where it was like a. Not a high level person where you actually knew their name, but it was a healthcare CEO and it was like immediately you knew kind of the motive, right? Kind of guess the motive. So for me, it was like I was kind of glued to Twitter X or whatever. I was definitely paying attention to see how the story would unfold. For me, it was really interesting in a lot of ways, in part because it's a really unusual situation and not so much in the way that the media handled it, but just who the victim was, who the offender was and the reaction to it. So that was really interesting to me. And from both a, a legal standpoint and a psychological standpoint, it's intriguing to think about what are the events that led to this particular event and what were the consequences of it. Obviously, a lot of attention on Luigi. Right. I almost feel like Brian Thompson has been pushed aside and I won't say forgotten because he's the victim here. And his role in the healthcare industry has played a major part in the motive and the reaction both online and in the media. But I think it might be a good idea to maybe give a quick recap of Brian Thompson. He was a 50 year old CEO of UnitedHealthcare from April 2021 until his death in December 2024. And UnitedHealthcare, the largest health insurer in the U.S. what people focus on a lot is his role as CEO. And what else are they gonna focus on, right? Profits. Profits increased $12 billion from 2021 to $16 billion in 2023. Again, you mentioned you weren't necessarily surprised or you had an idea of what the motive might have been. Why was that? I mean, what's been going on prior to this the past 2, 5, 10, 20 years, however long? Maybe some tensions have been bubbling under the surface. Oh yeah. I mean, the stories you'd hear online of claims denials and the only way you could really get attention would be to go on social media, some blast or something about how United Healthcare denied cancer treatment or life saving drugs or something like that. And you could see stories like that every week. And if it wasn't on social media, it was a personal member or it was yourself or it was a neighbor that you had heard of not getting the treatment that they felt like they were entitled to and having to fight with insurance companies, even if you did win, you'd have to have this huge fight. And you know, there's this saying in the chronically ill world of healthcare that, you know, I got the cancer, but what's really worse is the insurance. So I can deal with the cancer. It's the insurance companies. It's kind of like common knowledge. You immediately can start up a conversation with somebody about your hospital visits and it's really, you really start ranting about the health insurance experiences that you have. More so than necessarily the hospital. Of course, there's that side to it as well. There's the health provider side, but it's the health insurer that a lot of people just have lots to say about. And Phyllis, from a criminal justice perspective, are the authorities following that same thought process, like, okay, healthcare CEO has gotta be disgruntled person who was denied insurance. How does that affect the subsequent manhunt? It does, because, you know, the vast majority of murders, the victim and the offender knew each other or it was something like a robbery gone wrong. So when it's not one of those two situations, it's really an outlier and they start looking for other motives. And you know, people don't, you know, walk up on the street and randomly kill people very often, fortunately. And so, so they start looking for these other motives. And certainly the, you know, this concept of, of extreme frustration with insurance companies has been something people have been talking about for years and years and we don't seem to be getting anywhere. So I'm sure the law enforcement was. Aware they finally found their suspect, Luigi Mangione. A lot of hoopla surrounding Luigi for a lot of different reasons. But initially a lot of people were surprised that he came from a wealthy background, he had an Ivy League education, he seemingly had it all or had more than those who are seen as struggling or being taken advantage of. What does that say? The fact that people were both surprised and that somebody with that type of background could potentially have committed this crime? Suspects or perpetrators, you're always going to probe for their background. I think more so for particularly white suspects. People of color, they don't really get the benefit of the doubt of that kind of complexity. It's always a stereotype that they're looking for or a criminal record or something. So for Luigi, he kind of did fit that type of a white suspect. You're not going to just give him a surface level look over. You're going to try to find out some complex motives and give him a full story, which I think the media really did. And I mean, I can't speak to necessarily his background and how it relates to his actions, because it's hard to tell. But he seemed like from the snippets that we saw online of his manifesto or whatever, he did seem to call out the injustices of the healthcare system. Specifically, I think he called the CEOs criminal slime or something like that. I can't remember exactly, but he basically was definitely saying, this has to be done because nothing else will change. So I feel. I feel like we get more exposure from the trial about his background and stuff. There may be some different information that we get. But right now he's intriguing, I think, to people because he has that complexity where he doesn't seem to fall into left and right viewpoints. He seems to be basing his thoughts on a book by Jay Feynman, which was a critical study of the healthcare industry. So he does seem to have something that people are grasping onto in terms of his background and in terms of his thought behind it. But it's really hard to say, you know, exactly if it all lines up, because people are complex. The intrigue was there before they even knew who Luigi was or had a face. Yeah. I mean, they had eyebrows through the CCTV footage, right? Yeah.

So at 6:

45am, that's when Brian Thompson was shot. And for five days there was a manhunt. And I'm curious, what were the authorities doing, Phyllis, during those five days? Cause from the outside looking in, it seemed like he just disappeared. And really it was a tip from a McDonald's worker that brought him in. A lot of people are talking about the NYPD as being ineffective, but I'm assuming they don't know the ins and outs of what, you know, a manhunt or a criminal investigation entails. Yeah. And, you know, in general, unlike what we see on TV and in the movies, solving crimes isn't something that happens overnight. You know, they collect evidence fairly systematically. So they'd be talking to witnesses, they'd be looking at cameras, and, you know, in today's world, there's cameras everywhere. They'd be tracing electronic trails for things to the best of their ability. And all of these things take time. Some of them require getting warrants, which require tracking people down. Homicides in general have a higher clearance rate than other crimes, but still, Nationwide, only about 60% of homicides are ever solved, regardless of how much effort police put into it, because it's not as easy as people might think it is. And they have to be careful about how they collect evidence, too. If they're careless, we saw this in the O.J. simpson trial, for example, they're careless in how they handle evidence and how they deal with it. That can ruin your conviction later on. So they can't kind of rush headlong into it. And so when they finally found Luigi, allegedly he had partially 3D printed Glock 19 and suppressor or silencer on him. He had a manifesto, he had a passport, several fake IDs. They were able to link one of those IDs to a hostile stay the morning of the murder. And since they arrested Luigi, a lot of media coverage has kind of left out the word alleged in a lot of discussions when they talk about him. Is that because the evidence found on him is just so solid that it's almost like a foregone conclusion or what's your perspective, Phyllis, from that? Why are people charging him guilty before innocent? You know, the opposite of what it should be? I think people like to do that in general, we like to have answers and we don't. We don't like to wait very much for our answers. In this particular case, you know, he allegedly made some statements implicating himself after the. After the incident. And so that. That may, you know, have era any question that people had lingering in their minds. But I think it's more, we as human beings don't like these things left hanging. We want to know, and we want to focus on a particular thing and not be worrying about what else is out there. So I think that's what's going on. I'm curious though, if he made statements implicating himself, why enter a not guilty plea? In most cases, and most especially high profile cases, in cases that carry serious implications like the death penalty, people will enter and guilty plea. They'll often change it later on due to Plea bargaining. But at least in the beginning, that's almost always happens. And there may be reasons why he may have implicated himself, but he may also have a defense like the insanity defense or some other defense that's going to come up. So, you know, even if he may have admitted to the killing in his writing, it would be pretty typical for them to enter a not guilty defense initially. So the crime, the manhunt, very, very entertaining for a lot of people, right? Very interesting. But perhaps more interesting has been the response, public and media response and support of Luigi. There are a lot of people who are horrified by that. There are a lot of people who have no problem at all supporting the murder of another individual because of their beliefs. When it comes to for profit healthcare, what was your reaction when you started to see support flood in online through memes, through discussion boards? I mean, it's so interesting to see first of all, as it's happening, a lot of people were like, they really overestimated his ability to dodge law enforcement. They really were like, oh, if he's doing this, he must be smart enough to get away and he must be smart enough to never get caught. And people were hoping he never got caught. They really like that kind of intrigue of maybe a Robin Hood figure, an outlaw who's not going to get caught. And I think they thought if he's smart enough to go after this healthcare CEO, then he must be some kind of genius. I noticed that there was a lot of, you know, at first when the McDonald's situation happened and I guess an employee called, it was like class betrayal. I noticed there were some comments about class betrayal. How could you do this? But then also as people started to, you know, his photos started to get posted and more of his background started to get posted, he sort of became like, almost like an attractive figure to a lot of women online. So there was that aspect of it too. And throughout all of that, people were also not supporting him as well. So there, I do think that it really was just an interesting way to see the whole spectrum of reactions to this, to this case. Yeah. And I do have some clips I'd like to play for everyone here to give an example of the polarization and then we can discuss this after we listen to it. That was a terrible thing. It was cold blooded, just a cold blooded, horrible killing. And how people can, like this guy is. That's a sickness, actually. That's really very bad. Especially the way it was done. It was so bad. Right in the back. It seems that there's a Certain appetite for him. I don't get it. This guy's not ready. He's way too soft. He's going to get annihilated on the inside and good. If he's not going to get the. Death penalty, maybe someone will do him justice behind bars. The New York Post reported that some extreme activists were circulating a deck of cards with other most wanted CEOs to be targeted for assassination. I feel like they want to prosecute people that are just like, yeah, I love Luigi Mangione. It's pretty wild. It's just that the people are united. And as long as they remain united, as long as they have numbers, it's going to be fairly hard to just like pick people apart like this. And they're talking about looting. But CNN and Fox News are not going to bring up the insurance companies that are just going to keep everybody's premiums and still give themselves a bonus. Yes, free Luigi. I love how they acted surprised. Why did that happen? I have no idea. He wrote on the bullets why it happened. Oh, we're back to Luigi. Okay. Yeah, yeah. I never left Luigi. President Donald Trump in those clips, we had Jesse Waters of Fox News, we had Hasan Piker, a political streamer, and of course, again, Bill Burr, world renowned comedian. Why the quick either condemnation or the quick idolization? It seemed like there was no in between. It was one or the other. Right? Yeah. And it did kind of seem to break down along party lines, at least you know, with Republicans, you know, calling this a heinous crime. And a lot of people maybe who on the liberal Democratic side were took it as an opportunity to talk about the health care industry. It might not break down along party lines, though, just because a lot of people may have complex feelings like they might not agree with murder solving problems, but they also can also agree that health insurance companies might not help our society as much as the CEOs might think they do. So I can see that there's some people who, and I did ask some of my students and I asked my friends, what are your reactions? And they said a lot of them were just like, I wasn't mad at him. I didn't feel any kind of anger or emotion at him. And that's really interesting to me because it kind of tells us where our sympathies lie, at least among students here at Stanford in my small sample. So, yeah, I think he made an immediate connection for those people who have had really terrible, bad experiences with healthcare in the insurance industry. But I also think that for the people who might not have supported him or might be more disturbed. They probably are the ones who are like, I don't think violence is the way to solve problems. It's not a sign of a healthy, functioning civil society when we go out and, you know, think murder can actually commit change. In line with what Megan was saying, the suspect in this case is personally appealing in a way that a lot of suspects aren't. And so I think that's part of what's going on. But also I think, you know, people aren't thinking as much about the human beings involved, whether it's him or the victim. But the symbolism of it, you know, sort of the underdog beating the corporate bad guys, if you. If you're, you know, if you're thinking about it from one perspective or, you know, the evil usurper committing violence to achieve his goals, if you're from the other standpoint. And so that's a discussion that's been going on in this country for, you know, since the, you know, the Occupy movement and so forth. And so I think people can seize on that symbolism that can help us understand why it becomes so popular. But it also, for some people, at least, it becomes simple, and they might lose sight of the complexity of the situation. In the intro, I reference Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd, cult heroes, those folk heroes. Is this something we see all the time? So when something like this happens, when there's an overwhelming display of public support or public sympathy for a suspect or a potential criminal, what kind of challenges does that present? Law enforcement, anytime that there's a lot of media attention to any criminal case, that's a. That's a challenge because trying to obtain an impartial jury becomes increasingly problematic. Also, it increases security issues for law enforcement. For the. The suspect, if he's in custody and trying to continue to collect evidence when people have already heard about stuff, when people may be adding information that may or may not be accurate, that may have their own personal interests or their own biases influencing what they're saying, it becomes messier and a lot harder to have a clear path forward. Aside from just general support and people being shocked that people would support an alleged murder, this has also sparked discussion about important topics in our society. And, Megan, we spoke about this a little bit before the podcast. For a lot of people, they see this act as something that had to happen in order to bring this topic to the forefront. And of course, the topic is for profit health care, whether or not healthcare should be a right of all Americans or of all citizens. It was brought up by Bernie Sanders during his campaigns, but he seemed to be the only one really talking about it until this crime happened. And then. And suddenly the discussion exploded to the forefront on traditional and new media outlets. Yeah. And the way we discuss and debate healthcare reform seems to fit a pattern throughout our history, Even since the 40s, since Truman tried to give us some kind of national healthcare plan which failed. You know, you go from Truman and then you jump into lbj, President Johnson, that's quite a bit of time before, you know, we actually have some more progress. When Johnson delivered Medicare and Medicaid and. And even then from Johnson until, I would say, the Clinton era, which was trying to deliver some type of health care reform, they ended up, actually, I would say, empowering insurance companies with managed care. Managed care just means the insurance companies have more say over your health care bill and what they will and will not pay for. And that was not the norm for a long time. So you can just jump around through history. It usually takes 15 to 20 years at the most, sometimes before we jump in and out of health care debates. And this is abnormal, I think, for American society compared to other industrialized countries. Other industrialized countries, they actually vote on their health care reforms regularly with elections, and they have more stable and predictable discussions about their health care and how they're going to tinker with it or retool it. Canada, Japan, France, Spain, they have reforms that are delivered through the legislature, through discourse. And so I think for people that know how healthcare should function and how it should be reformed, this murder case might be a little more disturbing. Just because some people are seeing it as an opportunity to talk about health care reform. It's like, well, why do we in America have to have an assassination, a murder, a violent attempt, before we can even get anywhere? And I hate to say it, but, yeah, if you look at Johnson and his reforms that got passed because of his landslide election win, especially in Congress, that's really the only reason why it got passed, was because I think they had over 60 votes on the Democratic side to get Medicare and Medicaid. That was a lot of. That was in response to Kennedy's assassination. All these civil rights discussions were a lot of response to MLK's assassination. So I would say in America, we kind of do it differently than other countries. Yeah. And Phyllis, we talked about this too, right. While the healthcare system might be unusual compared to other developed countries, this brand of American justice is not unusual for us. Right. We're somewhat used to it, even if it hasn't Happened with a lot of frequency in recent years, going back to. Before the United States was even a country. Our heroes have been violent people. And we have a history of idolizing people who use violence. And sometimes they may be using it for what we think are good goals and sometimes not. But when I talk to friends and colleagues in other countries, the two biggest questions they have in their minds about the United States are, what's the deal with guns? And what's the deal with health care? And so here we have a case where those kinds of violence and health care issues kind of. And it seems like class is always mixed into those issues as well. Right. When it comes to heroes, Pretty Boy Floyd notoriously burned or tore up mortgage papers right when he robbed the banks. So it was like the lower class hailing these violent heroes because in their minds, they were being helped or aided. Yeah, a lot of these folk heroes were at the time they were alive. They were admired by poorer people. Al Capone was a hero in certain neighborhoods. He gave money to people who needed it. And this vision of kind of the little guy against the powerful big guy has been pervasive too. It's interesting in this particular case because the suspect did not come from the poor background. It sounds like he had a pretty privileged upbringing. So he wasn't sort of the little guy. Maybe not as wealthy as the victim, but certainly was not. Did not come from a disadvantaged background. And I have one more clip to play that encapsulates that class sentiment of us versus them. And this is a clip that's been all over the Internet. I've seen it multiple places on multiple platforms. So I'll play this and then I'll get your thoughts on this. To call this an act of terrorism is an insult to the intelligence of the American people. Terrorism is something designed to strike fear into the hearts of non combatant civilians. Right. The general population. Nobody but a tiny class of CEOs has been made to live in fear by Luigi's actions. But nearly everybody knows what it's like to live in fear of having a necessary medical claim denied. The fear of having your life ruined or potentially ended by a stack of medical bills. And I think in a system with so much violence that's directed from the top down, it should come as no surprise when violence begins to boomerang back from the bottom up up onto the 1%. You know, nothing within a system gets changed by violence. And that was Jamie Peck, a writer and podcaster, speaking to Chris Cuomo on News Nation. She went on to compare Deaths due to denied health Insurance claims to 9 11, estimating that 190,000 people are murdered, quote, unquote, murdered each year by the broken health care system, which computed to like 529 11s each year. So that's her moral argument, even though it's morally gray because there's a murder involved. What are your thoughts on that? I mean, yeah, I mean, to me, I just hear a moral. Like you said, a moral argument, a moral claim, moral rhetoric, a moral ground to stand on about the issues of healthcare in this country, the disillusionment. And I have to say that unfortunately, it's hard to argue against that because UnitedHealthcare is such a villain. Right. It's an easy villain because they're always in the news about claims denials. And there's such a high likelihood that you have a personal Conn. UnitedHealthcare, because like you said, it was the biggest health insurer in the country, the fourth highest revenue among all US Corporations, I think. And so they're making a lot of money off of people's misery. And so it does not. It's really hard to kind of like counter that. But also, was that Cuomo saying that violence doesn't cause. And I also think that that's an important thing to bring into the discussion too, because do we want to live in a society where every leader is afraid of murder? If this is the norm we want, which is really just vigilante justice, in my opinion, it's. Is it the only justice that we can get in this country? And that outside of the law, outside of the norms that we have and the structures that we have. So if that's going to be acceptable to us, is that really what a civil society should be doing? And violence, of course, would be a slippery slope to change. I think that that's kind of what he's trying to argue. Does that strike fear in law enforcement as far as copycats or potential for more violence against people who are perceived as being in a different class or people who have slighted them in some. I'm sure that after an incident like this, law enforcement and also, of course, corporations become more concerned about copycat offenses. As we've seen people arrested for making something that could be considered a vague threat and suddenly they're thrown in jail. So it certainly inspires fear. We have a long history in this country of focusing on street crime, defining crime really primarily as street crime. And law enforcement has an interest in doing that, and so do the powers that be often. And so we can focus More on one person killing another person, which is obviously a really bad thing, rather than on a company putting toxins into the environment that kill thousands. And how we think about crime has often been based on class and there's an interest in maintaining that. But again, the powers that be. Yeah. And you're alluding to Brianna Boston, 42 year old woman from Florida who has been charged with threats to conduct a mass shooting or act of terrorism for an offhanded comment she made while she was on the phone with Blue Cross Blue Shield. She said, delayed and I depose you, people are next. And so she got the book thrown at her. And there are a lot of people who are upset, citing First Amendment violations and saying that the potential sentence is unfair when there is a real legitimate fear of potential copycat crimes. How do you balance addressing those concerns appropriately while not overstepping and violating people's rights? Historically, we haven't balanced it very well at all. And a lot of the reactions to events like this are fast and they're not very precise. So they'll pass a law or they'll take various law enforcement actions that are really reactionary without thinking about the broader consequences of it, without taking the time to hone it carefully to meet the real. I mean, there is a real concern about the safety of individuals and that's something we should be concerned about. But in the heat of the moment, we lawmakers don't always think about how to carefully craft a response. And so we see this very broad overstepping sometimes. And I would imagine this type of heavy handed response would only serve to deepen the divide of public opinion when it comes to this case and what is brought to the surface. I would think so. Yeah, I would think so too. It makes it seem like we're not allowed to feel a certain way. I think if the response is too heavy handed. So that's a separate case. Again, we're getting ready for Luigi Mangione's trial. In New York he's being charged murder on the 1st degree in furtherance of terrorism, murder in the 2nd degree, criminal possession of a weapon in the 2nd degree, Criminal possession of a weapon in the 3rd degree, criminal possession of a weapon in the 4th degree, criminal possession of a forged instrument in the 2nd degree. In Pennsylvania he's being charged with possession of fraudulent document, which is an id, and possession of a gun and silencer. And federally he's being charged with using a firearm to commit murder. Interstate stalking resulting in death, stalking through the use of interstate facilities resulting in death and discharging a firearm equipped with a silencer in furtherance of a crime of violence. What is he looking at? Potentially he's looking at the death penalty, certainly a very long sentence in prison, potentially a life sentence. He wouldn't get convicted of all of these things even if all of the jurisdictions were to go after him, which they may not. If he were to be convicted of the most serious offenses, the states, the jurisdictions that have less serious offenses may not bother. But even if he were to be convicted of the most serious offenses, they'll often charge a lot of things in case they can't prove for something in the first degree, they'll also charge it in the second decree. So they could still get a conviction for a lesser offense. But he's, he's, he's looking at potentially the death penalty. And the one charge everyone's focusing on is the terrorism charge. And again, that was alluded to in the clip I just played. How unusual is it for one murder to result in a terrorism charge? It's very unusual. Not just that it's, it's one murder, but who the victim was. You know, generally speaking, terrorism is either against a group, a mass group of civilians, like, like 911 or the Oklahoma City bombing, or it's against a political somebody who works for the government. So the fact that this was neither of those situations is really unusual. Terrorism is broadly defined as a criminal act intended to sort of to affect government action. And so usually either that's done by killing a whole lot of people to terrorize them or by focusing on individuals who have the power to make political change. And so the fact that this was neither of those is interesting. It's problematic in whether you can get that kind of conviction to stick. The language of the terrorism statutes tend to be fairly broad. And so whether this would fit into that is questionable, but it's not impossible. When I first heard that, I thought, do they think that these healthcare CEOs, these health insurance industry is the government? Because that is actually a common misconception. You know, a lot of people think that the health insurance industry is run by the government. I would say like some low information voters or folks who are kind of tuned out to the daily back and forth about healthcare. They, like some of my students who are brand new to the subject. I ask them, is Medicare and Medicaid a socialized medicine system? And the answer is really no. It's run by, it's basically the government will take out taxes to help you pay for private insurance through Medicare and Medicaid. So My thought was, when I heard that is like, do they think, are they trying to treat a private company like a government agency? It wouldn't actually be that off the wall because we don't have any kind of government centralized healthcare system. So technically, yes, our health insurance industry is our healthcare system. I wouldn't say that New York State police and the feds are going at it like that. But. But it's not completely off the wall to say, well, they're filling a gap in our government in a broader sense. We have really blurred the line between corporations and government at this point in our country. And it's troubling in a lot of ways. We had a Supreme Court decision that said corporations are people. And so I think this is a sign, not just in realm of healthcare, but in general, this feeling that corporations are government and to affect corporations is to affect the government, which is problematic in a lot of ways. Yeah. So we have Luigi being charged with terrorism. We have Brianna Boston being charged with terrorism. I've read a lot of discussion online. People are worried that this is setting a precedent to slap the label of a terrorist on anybody who voices dissent. Do you think that's a real concern? Do you think it's a knee jerk. Reaction, like going overboard in terms of, like trying to control the discourse? And Brianna Boston said a few words on the phone in anger. So people are extrapolating that if they decide to go protest or they decide to post a meme or they decide to write a letter, if they voice dissent in any way, they're worried that this may set a precedent of the centers being labeled as terrorists. And if you're including CEOs and corporations in the list alongside government, then there seems to be just a general sense of worry. From what I've read online. Yeah. Merging of the two. And I mean, I know Trump rode through a wave of populist anger toward the government, not in his landslide victory because it was really only 1% of victory. But I do think that populist anger transcends both left and right. People are sick of being screwed over by insurance companies, and that's kind of who Thompson was representing. So I think that the sympathies immediately were kind of like with Luigi. And if there is kind of like an overwhelming response against people's ability to criticize insurance companies, it makes sense. But up to the point of violence, I think that's when the government is getting a little concerned. I would be concerned about government officials using, if we're going to interpret terrorism this broadly about Using it in a lot of troubling ways. Just the other day I heard about a case where a guy, somebody had spray painting word Nazi on his Tesla as it was parked outside his house. Which isn't, as crimes go, it's not the crime of the century. But could somebody decide that that's, that that's a terrorist act, given that the CEO of Tesla is obviously closely involved in what's going on in the government right now and this seemed to be a protest against that. Yeah. Is that what we want to think of as terrorism? Probably not. So we've talked about a lot and we haven't even really touched the trial all that much. So what should people expect from the trial? One of the things that's really interesting to me about this trial is it's not typical for a really high profile homicide case to go to trial this quickly. So I don't know, you know, I don't know the ins and outs of what was happening there, whether both sides had an interest in getting it over with quickly. We may see a lot of media attention to it, given other news cycles going on. I don't know how much in general, not that many crimes go to trial. About 95% of cases get plea bargained out. So it's unusual in general that it's going to trial. I don't know what kinds of defenses we may see. It's possible that we may see an insanity defense or other kinds of defenses brought forward, in which case, you know, the focus will be not so much on the offense itself, but on what was going on in the offender's mind. It will last for a while, whatever happens. His supporters keep yelling jury nullification. It almost seems like a pipe dream, you know, hoping that somehow he can get off. Can you explain jury nullification and what are the odds of that becoming something that happens? Sure. Jury nullification is a legal doctrine that's been recognized since, since the 1600s. And it basically gives the jury the power to find someone not guilty even if they stand up, you know, stand there and say that they're guilty. And if the, if once a jury finds somebody not guilty, you can't retry them on those same charges because of double jeopardy. So it's been used very rarely, but it has been used when the jury feels that either the law itself is unjust or that prosecuting it in this particular case is unjust. And you know, historically in America, it has come up sometimes. The case that recognized it in America was a political case where a publisher had published things critical of the governor of New York when it was still under the British rule, the publisher was prosecuted, the jury refused to convict him, and the judge told the jury, either you convict him or you're going to jail too. Some things happen. And basically said, you can't do that. So jury nullification is often a political thing, although not necessarily, but it allows a jury to find an obviously guilty person not guilty if they think that that would be the just thing to do. I would assume that's a long shot though, right? It's a very long shot. It almost never happens. I mean, there have been a very small handful of cases where it's happened. Given the existing discourse and discussion that's been happening, how do you see that evolving or changing moving forward as the trial kind of takes place in terms of public discourse? Well, I definitely see a lot of those clips that you were showing more of that sort of thing. Because for the folks who are hoping that this changes something, they're really putting all their hopes for health care reform in a murder case, which I think is what's unique about this case in general is that it's now an opportunity to have health care discussions and health care reform discussions. We haven't really had that in our healthcare debates before where we're talking about health health care under the pretext of a murder trial. If you think about our last big discussion in 2009 around the ACA, also known as Obamacare, being passed, it was very much within the boring realm of Senate discourse and who's going to vote for a public option or not? And it was very dry. So I think for people, actually this might have the effect of people may be more intrigued now to discuss healthcare because of its surrounding a true crime podcast style of discussion. I foresee possibly some good things coming out of it just because I think any kind of discussion about healthcare is good. But I also kind of am disturbed personally that it has to come under this circumstance. I would expect to see some of the public support for the defendant eroded as more information comes out about his background. His background, really, when you see him as abstract symbol of, you know, anti anti corporatism or favor of better health care, that's one thing. But when you hear about more about some of what he believes in, personally, I don't think he will be necessarily as beloved, especially people on the left part of the political spectrum. So as that evidence comes out, we may see some of that support erode. Are you incorporating any information from this case or trial in your classroom discussions or your lessons? I Teach an introduction to criminal justice class. So it's definitely something that we'll be talking about. It's hard to talk about it now because we don't know much and you don't want to leap into things making assumptions. But we'll definitely be talking about it a little more, especially as we talk about the trial process and as we talk about understanding what goes on in a case. For me, I'm always just trying to get students to understand the healthcare system and how it works. And, and I do think it would be a great starting point. Like, hey, remember this case, the Luigi case? He allegedly, depending on where I am in the court case in my class, I would say allegedly he killed this health care CEO and health insurance CEO. Why would he do that? Opening it up for discussion about how our healthcare system works and the structure of it. Because what I really want students to understand is that the government does not pay for our healthcare. We have a employer run healthcare system. That means the employer pays, we pay a premium, and that's the majority of how our healthcare works. Well, there's this huge misconception that the government is paying for all of our healthcare and that is such a tiny minority of our expenditures in healthcare. A lot of that just comes from insurance and either tax. If we do have any taxes that get taken out, that goes to Medicare and Medicaid. So. So for me, my goal is not really to get into all the weeds about moral justifications and all that. It's just really to help students understand the structure. How long do you think this trial lasts? It can be a little bit unpredictable since we don't know what defenses yet will be brought up. They'll select a jury, which in and of itself is going to take some time because they're going to have to find impartial jurors, which means people who haven't already developed an opinion one way or another about the defendant's guilt. And that's going to be tough. After that, the prosecutor will present their case in chief and so they'll present all of the evidence. During that, the defense has an opportunity to cross examine people. But primarily it's sort of the prosecutor's show where they show everything they've got. Once they've finished that, then it's the defense's turn. And so that, and if again, if they have what's called an affirmative defense, like insanity, self defense is another affirmative defense, then the defense has the burden of, of proving that. So they have to come up with their own bunch of evidence. They'll generally have witnesses and so forth to counter whatever was said that we can expect there to be both eyewitnesses and also expert witnesses who weren't present at the time of the offense, but have some area of expertise that's gonna be useful, like in understanding the weapons that were used, for example, and understanding mental health issues, if that comes up. Well, I expect everyone's social media feeds and algorithms to be chocked full of information from this trial, whether they're interested or not. I'd like to thank you, too, for joining me. This was a great podcast. A lot of information shared. Before we part ways, any final thoughts? To me, it's really important, I think, that we, if we do really want healthcare reform, that we shouldn't be too disillusioned and say murder is the only way. We really have to let our political leaders know what reforms we want, vote for candidates who support our views toward healthcare. I know that process is really tedious. I know that process is not, you know, has a direct outcome that people can see. But we probably shouldn't let political violence look more attractive just because of the slow pace of democracy. It seems to be a tipping point where we start to accept violence as the only way to make change. And that could be a warning for us as a society. I think. I think we should be very careful not to let the details of one particular, very unusual case distract us from the larger issues, like healthcare reform, like what does violence mean? And how. What is the role between corporations and the general public and the government? Those abstract things aren't necessarily as interesting to think about, but they're, in the grand scheme of things, a lot more important. And finally, before we end the episode, you two are professors here on campus, right? For students who might be listening to this podcast, and they're interested in what they've heard and they're thinking about taking a class with either two of you. Just give me a rundown of what courses you teach when, whether it be summer or fall or even this semester. I know it's probably too late, obviously, to enroll in one of your classes in the spring, but give students out there a rundown of where they might be able to find you if they want to learn from you directly. A marketing pitch for my class? Yes, we always love that. I teach Disability in Society, which is usually offered in the fall, and I also teach Medical Sociology, offered in the spring, an Introduction to Gerontology, offered in the spring as well. And those are usually the classes where we cover a lot of these discussions about healthcare. And care in general, I teach a. Hate crimes class usually in both fall and spring. That one is a really popular class where we talk about hate crimes and extremism in general. I teach Introduction to Psychology or Introduction to Psychology. No, I don't. Sorry, Psych department. I teach Introduction to Criminal justice, which I generally teach it in the spring and that is open to people of any major, satisfy some general ed requirements. And I also teach, usually in the fall, a Psychology of Criminal Behavior class. So if students are interested in trying to understand what goes on in people's heads when they commit offenses, that could be a class they might be interested in. All right, Dr. Meggan Jordan and Dr. Phyllis Gerstenfeld, thank you for joining us on the Stan State Educast. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Once again, a big thank you to Dr. Meggan Jordan and Dr. Phyllis Gerstenfeld for joining us on this episode of the Stan State Educast. If you enjoyed this episode and you want to listen to past episodes of the Stan State Educast or other episodes from our other podcasts, you can visit csustan. Edu/podcast and you can also follow and subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform. So until our next episode, I'm your host, Frankie Tovar. Thank you for listening.