My understanding is that he gave cops a fake ID when they questioned him on reasonable suspicion (the basis of which was a tip from an employee). That is something that yes, he can be arrested for. And he can be personally searched after that arrest. But at that point, he can no longer get a gun out of his bag, and cops have control of it, so he can’t destroy evidence/get a weapon from it; so searching the bag should be out at that time. So, my understanding, based on case law, is that they would have needed a warrant to search it at that time, as the contents of the bag aren’t related to the reason he’s been arrested. You aren’t supposed to be able to use a pretextural arrest to search a person’s car or belongings (e.g., arrest you for suspicion of drunk driving, then search your car to find evidence of burglaries).
In theory, without the warrant, the search and everything from the search should be out. Even if he committed the crime, and kept all the evidence conveniently in his backpack, it should be completely excluded from the case. I’m sure that the DA is going to argue that there’s some exception that allows a warrantless search, but I can’t say what that argument will be. If the evidence is allowed in, his defense attorney is going to have to object every single time that prosecutors refer to it, for any reason, in order to preserve the option to claim that evidence was improperly admitted in an appeal. (Which they should absolutely do, if it goes that far!)
Federal rules of evidence is pretty complicated stuff. But goddamn, does it look like someone fucked up bad on a really high profile case.
You aren’t supposed to be able to use a pretextural arrest to search a person’s car or belongings
This is something they could very easily forget, or just never learned, because they usually fuck up the poor and colored and press them into plea deals so it never goes to trial so it never becomes apparent the police have nothing since they ignored all the laws, i imagine when u spend a good amount of your career cheating the justice system you forget there were ever rules to begin with.
Part of me is leaning towards Luigi being the guy and he planned on getting arrested with this ‘too good to be true’ evidence in this little known PA town, because he was banking on them bungling it and he knew he would have a good legal team making it seem planted, or at the least have widespread public support if he did get charged.
Even if he committed the crime, and kept all the evidence conveniently in his backpack
Yeah, he conveniently carried around a disposable weapon used in a murder that he was wanted for, instead of disposing of it. Also he conveniently wrote a manifesto related to the murder and carried that around in his backpack as well.
Not a manifesto. Manifestos are published by the author. We have no way of knowing who authored that police officer’s fever dream, but since the police published it, it wasn’t written by Luigi. Also the language and grammar are consistent with the lack of education that cops receive, not the level of education that Luigi received.
They called it a manifesto, which is why I used the term. If it’s real, he was basically just carrying around a written confession in his backpack just to make the cops’ jobs easier, I guess.
Not a lawyer, but I know that when a cop arrests someone in a car and the car is impounded, they catalog items. This is an unofficial search to make sure they aren’t liable for missing items. I would expect the same of a backpack. But perhaps that falls under the same disqualification of use as evidence you’re suggesting.
That’s called an “inventory search”, and this motion says what happened isn’t an “inventory search” because they didn’t follow procedure (and cites supporting precedence).
If they would have just hauled him in for processing on the false identification, and then found the gun during an inventory search at the station, it would be better for the prosecution.
The motion also claims that the search couldn’t be a… safety search? (I don’t know the right term)… like checking a person for weapons, because before the search was initiated, the suspect was already handcuffed and separated from the backpack so didn’t have access to anything in it that could be hazardous to the officers. Prosecution might argue is was a safety search because they were looking for a hazard that didn’t need to be triggered by the suspect, like a timed device or just an incidental hazard.
Let’s say that Mangione committed the crime.
My understanding is that he gave cops a fake ID when they questioned him on reasonable suspicion (the basis of which was a tip from an employee). That is something that yes, he can be arrested for. And he can be personally searched after that arrest. But at that point, he can no longer get a gun out of his bag, and cops have control of it, so he can’t destroy evidence/get a weapon from it; so searching the bag should be out at that time. So, my understanding, based on case law, is that they would have needed a warrant to search it at that time, as the contents of the bag aren’t related to the reason he’s been arrested. You aren’t supposed to be able to use a pretextural arrest to search a person’s car or belongings (e.g., arrest you for suspicion of drunk driving, then search your car to find evidence of burglaries).
In theory, without the warrant, the search and everything from the search should be out. Even if he committed the crime, and kept all the evidence conveniently in his backpack, it should be completely excluded from the case. I’m sure that the DA is going to argue that there’s some exception that allows a warrantless search, but I can’t say what that argument will be. If the evidence is allowed in, his defense attorney is going to have to object every single time that prosecutors refer to it, for any reason, in order to preserve the option to claim that evidence was improperly admitted in an appeal. (Which they should absolutely do, if it goes that far!)
Federal rules of evidence is pretty complicated stuff. But goddamn, does it look like someone fucked up bad on a really high profile case.
This is something they could very easily forget, or just never learned, because they usually fuck up the poor and colored and press them into plea deals so it never goes to trial so it never becomes apparent the police have nothing since they ignored all the laws, i imagine when u spend a good amount of your career cheating the justice system you forget there were ever rules to begin with.
Part of me is leaning towards Luigi being the guy and he planned on getting arrested with this ‘too good to be true’ evidence in this little known PA town, because he was banking on them bungling it and he knew he would have a good legal team making it seem planted, or at the least have widespread public support if he did get charged.
Yeah, he conveniently carried around a disposable weapon used in a murder that he was wanted for, instead of disposing of it. Also he conveniently wrote a manifesto related to the murder and carried that around in his backpack as well.
Nothing suspicious here. Move along.
Not a manifesto. Manifestos are published by the author. We have no way of knowing who authored that police officer’s fever dream, but since the police published it, it wasn’t written by Luigi. Also the language and grammar are consistent with the lack of education that cops receive, not the level of education that Luigi received.
They called it a manifesto, which is why I used the term. If it’s real, he was basically just carrying around a written confession in his backpack just to make the cops’ jobs easier, I guess.
Fair nuff
Not a lawyer, but I know that when a cop arrests someone in a car and the car is impounded, they catalog items. This is an unofficial search to make sure they aren’t liable for missing items. I would expect the same of a backpack. But perhaps that falls under the same disqualification of use as evidence you’re suggesting.
That’s called an “inventory search”, and this motion says what happened isn’t an “inventory search” because they didn’t follow procedure (and cites supporting precedence).
If they would have just hauled him in for processing on the false identification, and then found the gun during an inventory search at the station, it would be better for the prosecution.
The motion also claims that the search couldn’t be a… safety search? (I don’t know the right term)… like checking a person for weapons, because before the search was initiated, the suspect was already handcuffed and separated from the backpack so didn’t have access to anything in it that could be hazardous to the officers. Prosecution might argue is was a safety search because they were looking for a hazard that didn’t need to be triggered by the suspect, like a timed device or just an incidental hazard.
IANAL, just an interested citizen.