Luigi Mangione defense team demands more press access to 'fully public, open and unbiased trial'

The defense team for Luigi Mangione, the man charged with killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has taken issue with the press guidelines laid out for his forthcoming trial, objecting to the lack of use of an overflow space for the press and the process through which a small pool of reporters is selected. 

“Luigi Mangione, through his counsel, objects to the partial exclusion of the public and the press from his upcoming trial and to any process where the Court and the District Attorney’s Office, directly or indirectly, hand-pick the reporters permitted to attend,” the Friday letter stated. 

“Criminal defendants have a Sixth Amendment right to a fully public, open and unbiased trial. This means that every member of the public and the press who wishes to see the Mangione trial should be permitted to do so unless there exists ‘an overriding interest based on findings that closure is essential to preserve higher values and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest.’” 

“Mr. Mangione has three objections to the proffered procedure which, combined, amount to a constitutional violation. First, he objects to the partial closure of his trial on the basis of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments under the particular facts here, where the New York County Court has the capacity to broadcast this trial to a so-called overflow courthouse and seemingly has intentionally decided against doing to.

“Second, he objects to a process institutied by the Court, with the involvement of the District Attorney, to hand-select which news reporters are permitted to attend the trial and which are not. Third, he objects that he was not provided with the right to be heard, prior to the Court reaching the decision to not utilize an overflow room and to allow hand-picked reporters to cover the trial.” 

The filing stated that on July 16, the New York State Office of Court Administration issued media access guidelines for the case, which stated that there will not be any overflow space provided, and that only six journalists will be allowed to cover jury selection, “in a dramatic break from customary practice.” 

“We understand from this OCA directive that these same stringent guidelines are both intended to apply to the August 11th proceeding, as well as the trial scheduled to begin in September, without further explanation,” the letter stated. 

“We have further been informed by members of the press that the selection of the six journalists permitted to cover jury selection has been delegated by OCA to the press itself, without disclosing the criteria for selection. Additionally, we have been informed that this secret process involves OCA granting general access to the proceedings to only 68 journalists. Moreover, we were also told that OCA has effectively outsourced the selection of the 68 trial journalists to a single private attorney at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, who has appeared befor this Court and represents approxiamtely a dozen legacy media organizations—only a handful of the media representatives seeking access to the proceedings—and does not represent the scores of independent journalists who have an interest in covering these proceedings.” 

The defense called the process “unabashedly arbitrary and insufficient to satisfy the requirements of the Constitution,” adding that “the historical significance of fully public trials has been reinforced time and again.” 

In light of the revelations, the defense has requested a public hearing, at which a number of topics would be discussed: a list of the six journalists selected to cover jury selection, a list of the 68 journalists selected to cover the proceedings, and an explanation of the criteria used to select these journalists, what efforts were made to secure an overflow courtroom, and for the proceedings to be livestreamed.