As Luigi Mangione's lawyers head to court, support grows for the accused 'vigilante'

NEW YORK — As Luigi Mangione's team of attorneys heads back to state court in Manhattan this week for a key pretrial hearing, public support for the 28-year-old continues to grow.Some legal experts say Mangione's populist appeal, fueled in part by what many describe as his Instagram-ready good looks, could complicate state and federal trials.

"The concern you have as a prosecutor is that public support is going to make it into the jury room," said Richard Schoenstein, a legal analyst and defense attorney.Mangione is accused of stalking and murdering Brian Thompson, age 50, a health insurance executive and father of two, on a Manhattan street in 2024.

Mangione has pleaded not guilty to all charges.His crowd-sourced legal defense fund now tops $1.5 million, with more than 42,000 donors.

According to a pro-Mangione website created by volunteers, he has also received nearly 7,000 personal letters from dozens of countries around the world.Gary Galperin, a former assistant district attorney in New York County who teaches at Cardozo School of Law, agrees jury selection will be challenging because of Mangione's popularity."You may come to find that one or more jurors who seemed [unbiased] harbor views that could derail the deliberations," he said.

Another risk, say Schoenstein, Galperin and others, is that some jurors could come to see Mangione's state and federal trials as a referendum on the costly, frustrating and often inaccessible U.S.healthcare system.

According to federal prosecutors, a notebook kept by Mangione "contained several handwritten pages that express hostility towards the health insurance industry and wealthy executives in particular." Mangione's writings allegedly included a plan to "wack" an insurance company CEO.Schoenstein thinks many Mangione supporters are so outraged by U.S.healthcare that they view his alleged violence as a legitimate political statement.

"There definitely are people out there who assume this defendant committed the crime...