“Even if this motion is successful, it doesn’t mean that Luigi Mangione walks out of prison,” said Ron Kuby, a criminal defense attorney whose practice focuses on civil rights. “All it means is that the items that were seized from him, or seized that belong to him, can’t be used as evidence against him.”
Kuby thinks that Mangione’s team has made enough claims in their papers to merit a hearing on the issues, in which the police officer involved would have to testify, confirming or denying the facts. “It does appear that they stopped and frisked Mangione without a legal basis to do it. If that’s true, everything that follows from there is likely to be found to be unconstitutional,” he said.
What else could they have? They have a video of the crime, and the evidence they claim they found in his backpack when he was arrested, and a couple pieces of evidence they claim they found at the scene that contain his DNA.
Much of the backpack evidence is likely to be thrown out, and the video evidence is highly debateable, and easily refutable. That leaves the DNA items they claim were found at the scene, which could easily have been picked up at his hostel, and planted.
Any other evidence would be far before the crime, or far removed from it, and would be weak at best.
To speculate, they might have additional video evidence linking him to the killing. For example, if they have video of the killer getting on the bus, and Luigi getting off that bus, it’s a pretty small pool of suspects.
They tracked him for 10 days, and he only revealed his face a single time - when he quickly flashed a smile with a girl flirting with him, and that was days before the hit.
Their evidence is extremely thin, and they know it.
That’s what we know of. They always have more that they don’t disclose to the public.
