r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Glittery_WarlockWho • 24d ago

Why is Luigi Mangione potentially facing the death penalty for the murder of one person when other murderers with similar crimes get jain time?

Please no snarky comments of 'you know why' , 'it's because the guy was rich' etc... There HAS to be a reason why his crime is getting sentenced so heavily that doesn't have to do with the net worth of his victim, or at least I hope there is.

In my city, a drunk driver kills two people in a car and he's sentenced to jail for 20 years and gets out in 12 for good behaviour.

Luigi kills one man and is facing the death penalty?

I don't understand, he didn't kidnap, rape or torture, I've heard of murderers who rape and murder their victims get sentenced to jail.

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u/fixermark 23d ago

In fact, traditionally, pushing too hard on the death penalty is how you wind up with a nullification, or a hung jury.

All it takes is one juror to decide "I will never find a person guilty if that finding could authorize the state to end their life," and there you go.

(This is, historically, one of the actual reasons that penalties for theft were lessened in England. Folks in London were looking at kids in the docket and knew that the penalty for theft could be death. So... They didn't convict. London merchants got terrified that the law would practically stop protecting their property and petitioned the king to lower the possible penalties).

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u/DeathlySnails64 19d ago

This is, historically, one of the actual reasons that penalties for theft were lessened in England. Folks in London were looking at kids in the docket and knew that the penalty for theft could be death. So... They didn't convict. London merchants got terrified that the law would practically stop protecting their property and petitioned the king to lower the possible penalties

That whole story sounds like bullshit because kings have never listened to the wills of their own people. In fact, if they did, the American Revolution never would've happened and neither would the French Revolution. If kings like The King of England or The King of France actually listened to their people, democracy might not have ever needed to be a thing. So why would The King of England lessen the penalty for theft? Even if a few lowly shopkeepers asked him to?

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u/char11eg 19d ago

That’s not really a fair representation, though.

The king of England has never been overthrown in England. The american revolution happened to a fair degree because the colonies did not believe the empire was acting in their interests, not that the empire was doing a bad job for the empire, or for the home country of the empire.

Given that we still have a King, although yes one with limited power, it would probably be fair to surmise that the Crown has, historically, either been good to their people, or at least not bad enough, to justify overthrowing them. Unlike in France - and unlike in the colonies, who were far enough from the heart of the empire that it is far easier to become disillusioned with it.

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u/Aminadab_Brulle 19d ago

The king of England has never been overthrown in England.

Charles I: Remember.

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u/char11eg 19d ago

I mean, yes, in fairness, I was slightly forgetting that whole bit, but that probably doesn’t relate too much to the topic at hand 😂

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u/DeathlySnails64 19d ago

Regardless, I highly doubt that the kings of ye olde times would make any decisions based on how their peasants would like said decisions. Monarchies are not democracies.

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u/fixermark 19d ago

Among other things, merchants were where the King got his money when he wanted to go to war. Soldiers (especially mercenaries) don't actually work for free regardless of what the law says (historically, if a king gathered an army together and then went "bee tee dubs, I'm not going to pay or feed you", he'd find he just gathered an armed group of men who suddenly had a very focused target for their violence).

During the Enlightenment in particular, English kings had a reason to court the favor of the growing middle class: a middle class who wasn't interested in supporting them could support a rival. Monarchies weren't always replaced; monarchs could be overthrown, or replaced with one more favorable to the people with the money to fund a regime change.

("Society's Final Solution: A History and Discussion of the Death Penalty," L E Randa 1997, is a book with more information on the history of the death penalty, including in England).

(p.s: As other commenters have mentioned, there are some holes in your knowledge of the history of monarchy that may be worth plugging. It is a lot more complicated than "kings have never listened to their subjects." The history of the Magna Carta might be of interest to you).

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u/char11eg 19d ago

Merchants were not peasants. Merchants were pretty much the next tier down below nobility, with many having significant political power in and of themselves.

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u/ThePositiveMouse 17d ago

Merchants are not peasants.

Merchants petitioning the king is like an Oligarch picking up the phone to Putin.

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u/ThePositiveMouse 17d ago

'X never happened, because if it did, then it would have always happened with every King and prevented all these situations of revolution' <- this is your argument. Think about the nonsense of it.