patrick.net

#ceomurder I love to get feedback from readers. Our reader Wayne White has been following my op-eds about the assassination of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Yesterday he asked me a smile and profound question as follows:
"Jack, how do you personally feel about this killing?"
I have a simple answer. It breaks my heart. This whole incident is a great tragedy for Mr. Thompson's family, his fellow workers at United Healthcare, and his close friends. Imagine what he could have accomplished had he even had 20 years more of life. He could have seen his sons grow up and start their lives. He could have had great achievements in the corporate world. He could have built beautiful memories with his treasured friends.
Luigi Mangione is just 26 years old. Imagine all the good things he could have done with the decades ahead of him. I can imagine being part of a SpaceX engineering team that designs and builds a nuclear rocket engine capable of taking humans to Mars in 35-45 days as opposed to the 180 days now required with chemical rockets. He could have married and brought some wonderful children into the world. He could have gone on to greater and greater achievement. As the saying goes: "The world was his oyster."
What we have building here is a perfect storm for an awful disaster. The Mangione family has fabulous wealth. They will hire the best criminal lawyers in the U.S. to defend their son. The legal team is already mounting a defense against the extradition request request from Pennsylvania.
Eventually, the extradition request will be approved. Luigi will be transported by U.S. Marshals to New York City. What happens next will be a show trial similar to the O.J. Simpson murder trial in 1995 or the Donald Trump hush money trial.
Luigi's high-powered legal team will fight tooth and nail for their client. The Manhattan District Attorney's office will have to spend a fortune on the trial and deploy their best prosecutors to the case. Other important cases will get scant attention. Like me, these prosecutors will be sure that Luigi did not act alone in this case. Despite his protestations that he acted alone, they will be sure that he had inside help from someone inside United Health Care.
Luigi's legal team will figure out that the best chance of saving their client from decades in prison is to mount an insanity defense. Such defenses have worked in high profile cases including the man who attempted to assassinate President Reagan in 1982.
The Thompson and Mangione families will go through an ordeal lasting many months. They will be under the constant glare of major media coverage and all sorts of questions and conspiracy theories. Regardless of how the case ends, a lot of people will be angry and unhappy.
This whole scenario raises a very troubling concern. Other unbalanced people will come to believe that it is alright "to take the law into their own hands." Many more assassinations will follow. Every business leader will have to surround themselves with security personnel.
I have devoted 53 years of my life to studying Russian history in the 20th and 21st centuries and special attention paid to Josef Stalin and Vladimir Putin. Assassinations of opponents and those considered problematical are frequent and considered "business as usual." The U.S. could be heading in this direction.