Defense attorneys for alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter Luigi Mangione say prosecutors at the Manhattan district attorney's office violated his health privacy rights.
Well, I envy your hopefulness. https://www.boston.com/news/national-news/2025/07/15/immigration-agents-demand-tenant-information-from-landlords-stirring-questions-and-confusion/
ICE officers (cops essentially) signed the subpoenas. It’s not technically a lie. I can write and sign something I call a subpoena too. So all the prosecution had to do was have someone other than the lawyers sign it, just to help ensure they can’t be disbarred for it. While not a lie, I would call it an abuse of power and position for sure. So no, the “fake” subpoena just isn’t the smoking gun you think it is.
The only real question is what did they say that the witness heard. None of the news stories I read were very specific about that. And I think the witness worked for the insurance company, which is getting sued for handing over the information. So the witness likely will be pressured not to talk as it could incriminate them and thier employer. And I bet they will be represented by lawyers from the company, as they likely couldn’t afford as good of a legal team.
I mean, yes, I agree with you that the entire state of essentially the entire legal system is up in the air, dubious at this point given recent Supreme Court rulings and Executive Orders…
But if we are to pretend/assume that… the law actually exists as is written, that precedent and the way that proceedings generally play out over the history of US law is not all now completely arbitrary…
Then the Prosecution has to actually file their subpoena to, in this case, Aetna, with the actual Judge/Clerk in the case, so that the Judge, the Court, and the Defense Counsel actually know what is going on with the case.
To subvert this process is to subvert the right of a defendant to a fair trial.
Your example regarding ICE essentially self-authorizing themself is widely, widely derided by all manner of lawyers and legal figures across the country as being a dubious violation of this kind, which functionally means they are violating the law every single time they do that.
Yes, I get that the on the ground reality and the legal framework are not at all the same thing in this era of modern facism, but that is because the facists just brazenly and repeatedly violate the law in their own supposed execution of the law.
If you can find me an example of a prosecuting counsel flagrantly fabricating the notion that they have filed a subpoena with the judge/clerk of the court, and this being allowed and the case proceeding without consequence for this behavior, I will be more inclined to believe that this will also be allowed in this Luigi case, but I will remain convinced that such would still represent an egregious miscarriage of justice in the sense of destroying the defendant’s right to a fair trial.
Oh man did I go down a rabbit hole. Apparently most subpoenas for information are in fact signed by the attorneys. Only if the opposing side or the reciever wish to challenge it does the judge get involved. This is where the court date comes in. It is supposed to be on the subpoena to show there is a real case or something. I assume because a third party could verify the signer is part of that case.
I don’t have a great source for this because I mostly found it as an aswer to a question on legal forumns. Short of some very dense legal procedure docs I doubt there would be a better source.
So it doesn’t seem like him signing it is abnormal. News stories do mention that the court date didn’t exist. I imagine that is probably common as well if the date hasn’t been set. But maybe not.
It seems the biggest procedural issue was that the documents were supposed to be requested to go to the court first, but they requested them to be sent to the prosecution, then forwarded them to the court. I can’t see the case being tossed for that.
The defense is complaining that the prosecution should have realized the mistake by the size of documentation they received. I mean maybe, but again, that doesn’t seem like grounds for disarmament or dismissal. And they did report the mistake to the court and the defense. It took 12 days, but they claim that is when they realized it. And it would be hard to prove otherwise I think.
I can’t find any more reference to a witness to anything, so maybe that wasn’t accurate.
.Apparently most subpoenas for information are in fact signed by the attorneys. Only if the opposing side or the reciever wish to challenge it does the judge get involved.
Yes the entire point of the typical subpoena process is that everything goes through the judge who then lets the other legal team know, because pretrial discovery procedures are massively influential as to how a case can later play out when its in a further stage of trial.
For a great example of this, see how badly Alex Jones got fucked because he (and his lawyers) kept stalling and lying during the discovery process.
So it doesn’t seem like him signing it is abnormal. News stories do mention that the court date didn’t exist. I imagine that is probably common as well if the date hasn’t been set. But maybe not.
No, I think this is the core of your confusion.
Read the entire complaint the Defense submitted.
I linked the actual pdf of the whole thing in my main post.
Read the entire couthousenews article I also linked and quoted from.
The vast, vast amount of media outlets covering this story are:
Obviously downplaying tons of details that make the DA look bad
Frankly, are written by people with less expertise and knowledge of this level of intricacy of the legal system than you or I.
…
The Defense asserts that:
The Prosecution served Aetna with a subpoena, which has a specific court date set for them should they not comply.
That date did not, does not, and never did exist within the system of the Clerk of the Court.
What that means is the Prosectution did not make the Clerk, the Judge, nor anyone else aware of the fact that they had subpoena’d Aetna.
This also means they falsely threatened Aetna with a specific court appearance date that did not exist, was not real, was totally fabricated.
…
Yes, this technically is a ‘procedural mistake’, but only in the sense of entirely not filing your tax returns for 5 years is an ‘accounting mishap’.
It is an egregious affront to, again, the concept of a fair trial, because it demonstrates a willful and intentional lie.
None of that says it wasn’t common practice to do what they did. I think it is egregious, but if it is common than it won’t be as big a deal as it is being made out to be. It looks more like short cuts than actions that are more nefarious than normal.
Did Atnea refuse at some point, and this subpoena was the result? I haven’t heard that anywhere. Did they go over the top with the threat of being held in contempt of court? I think so, but it was probably boilerplate BS that goes on every subpoena.
Aside from all that. It is common for the prosecution to have information they aren’t allowed to present in court. So if they could have gotten the information anyway had they followed proper procedure, then it doesn’t automatically impact the fairness of the trial. That is why the jury decides the result.
I think you need more to say it impacted the possibility of a fair trial. Like proof they believed the request would have been denied if filed correctly. Or proof they knew they had more information than they asked for, that it was protected information, and they continued to read it anyway. Otherwise these “mistakes” only impact the lawyers getting sued or what not outside the scope of this trial.
Well, I envy your hopefulness.
https://www.boston.com/news/national-news/2025/07/15/immigration-agents-demand-tenant-information-from-landlords-stirring-questions-and-confusion/ ICE officers (cops essentially) signed the subpoenas. It’s not technically a lie. I can write and sign something I call a subpoena too. So all the prosecution had to do was have someone other than the lawyers sign it, just to help ensure they can’t be disbarred for it. While not a lie, I would call it an abuse of power and position for sure. So no, the “fake” subpoena just isn’t the smoking gun you think it is. The only real question is what did they say that the witness heard. None of the news stories I read were very specific about that. And I think the witness worked for the insurance company, which is getting sued for handing over the information. So the witness likely will be pressured not to talk as it could incriminate them and thier employer. And I bet they will be represented by lawyers from the company, as they likely couldn’t afford as good of a legal team.
I mean, yes, I agree with you that the entire state of essentially the entire legal system is up in the air, dubious at this point given recent Supreme Court rulings and Executive Orders…
But if we are to pretend/assume that… the law actually exists as is written, that precedent and the way that proceedings generally play out over the history of US law is not all now completely arbitrary…
Then the Prosecution has to actually file their subpoena to, in this case, Aetna, with the actual Judge/Clerk in the case, so that the Judge, the Court, and the Defense Counsel actually know what is going on with the case.
To subvert this process is to subvert the right of a defendant to a fair trial.
Your example regarding ICE essentially self-authorizing themself is widely, widely derided by all manner of lawyers and legal figures across the country as being a dubious violation of this kind, which functionally means they are violating the law every single time they do that.
Yes, I get that the on the ground reality and the legal framework are not at all the same thing in this era of modern facism, but that is because the facists just brazenly and repeatedly violate the law in their own supposed execution of the law.
If you can find me an example of a prosecuting counsel flagrantly fabricating the notion that they have filed a subpoena with the judge/clerk of the court, and this being allowed and the case proceeding without consequence for this behavior, I will be more inclined to believe that this will also be allowed in this Luigi case, but I will remain convinced that such would still represent an egregious miscarriage of justice in the sense of destroying the defendant’s right to a fair trial.
Oh man did I go down a rabbit hole. Apparently most subpoenas for information are in fact signed by the attorneys. Only if the opposing side or the reciever wish to challenge it does the judge get involved. This is where the court date comes in. It is supposed to be on the subpoena to show there is a real case or something. I assume because a third party could verify the signer is part of that case.
I don’t have a great source for this because I mostly found it as an aswer to a question on legal forumns. Short of some very dense legal procedure docs I doubt there would be a better source.
So it doesn’t seem like him signing it is abnormal. News stories do mention that the court date didn’t exist. I imagine that is probably common as well if the date hasn’t been set. But maybe not.
It seems the biggest procedural issue was that the documents were supposed to be requested to go to the court first, but they requested them to be sent to the prosecution, then forwarded them to the court. I can’t see the case being tossed for that.
The defense is complaining that the prosecution should have realized the mistake by the size of documentation they received. I mean maybe, but again, that doesn’t seem like grounds for disarmament or dismissal. And they did report the mistake to the court and the defense. It took 12 days, but they claim that is when they realized it. And it would be hard to prove otherwise I think.
I can’t find any more reference to a witness to anything, so maybe that wasn’t accurate.
Yes the entire point of the typical subpoena process is that everything goes through the judge who then lets the other legal team know, because pretrial discovery procedures are massively influential as to how a case can later play out when its in a further stage of trial.
For a great example of this, see how badly Alex Jones got fucked because he (and his lawyers) kept stalling and lying during the discovery process.
No, I think this is the core of your confusion.
Read the entire complaint the Defense submitted.
I linked the actual pdf of the whole thing in my main post.
Read the entire couthousenews article I also linked and quoted from.
The vast, vast amount of media outlets covering this story are:
Obviously downplaying tons of details that make the DA look bad
Frankly, are written by people with less expertise and knowledge of this level of intricacy of the legal system than you or I.
…
The Defense asserts that:
The Prosecution served Aetna with a subpoena, which has a specific court date set for them should they not comply.
That date did not, does not, and never did exist within the system of the Clerk of the Court.
What that means is the Prosectution did not make the Clerk, the Judge, nor anyone else aware of the fact that they had subpoena’d Aetna.
This also means they falsely threatened Aetna with a specific court appearance date that did not exist, was not real, was totally fabricated.
…
Yes, this technically is a ‘procedural mistake’, but only in the sense of entirely not filing your tax returns for 5 years is an ‘accounting mishap’.
It is an egregious affront to, again, the concept of a fair trial, because it demonstrates a willful and intentional lie.
They intimidated Aetna with a fabricated threat.
None of that says it wasn’t common practice to do what they did. I think it is egregious, but if it is common than it won’t be as big a deal as it is being made out to be. It looks more like short cuts than actions that are more nefarious than normal.
Did Atnea refuse at some point, and this subpoena was the result? I haven’t heard that anywhere. Did they go over the top with the threat of being held in contempt of court? I think so, but it was probably boilerplate BS that goes on every subpoena.
Aside from all that. It is common for the prosecution to have information they aren’t allowed to present in court. So if they could have gotten the information anyway had they followed proper procedure, then it doesn’t automatically impact the fairness of the trial. That is why the jury decides the result.
I think you need more to say it impacted the possibility of a fair trial. Like proof they believed the request would have been denied if filed correctly. Or proof they knew they had more information than they asked for, that it was protected information, and they continued to read it anyway. Otherwise these “mistakes” only impact the lawyers getting sued or what not outside the scope of this trial.