“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.
“There definitely are people out there who assume this defendant committed the crime, but support him in doing so,” he said.
“There are some students who believe he is absolutely a justified vigilante … against this system, the American healthcare system, that they think is unjust.”
It really annoyed me how everyone was cheering him on from day one when it was pretty obviously he was just set up. But yes, if he did do it obviously it was an objectively good thing an jury nullification is cool.
I know people love a good folk hero icon but especially now I think it’s extremely obvious he was not the shooter.
Now that opens up a more interesting question: If not him, then who did it and why? Obviously there are millions of Americans with motive and means, and thousands with opportunity, but the hit looked very professional. My real theory is that it wasn’t necessarily an ideological killing at all and that he was just a ghoul that probably fucked over and pissed off another wealthy person that could afford a job like that.