# Are Shutdown Firings Legal & Mangione Wants Death Penalty Tossed

An episode of [Bloomberg Law](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/277975394), 15 Oct 2025, 30 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/7c892d84-801f-4c0b-b0e9-ae2b0012ff5f/f8a994d2-89d3-4dd3-9441-b377001edf61/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=91224201-26a6-429d-ac3c-ae2b0012ff6d

Constitutional law expert David Super, a professor at Georgetown Law, discusses the legality of President Trump firing federal workers during the shutdown. Bloomberg legal reporter Patricia Hurtado, discusses the Luigi Mangione defense asking the judge to drop a death-penalty eligible charge. June Grasso hosts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosseo from Bloomberg Radio.
[0:10] Speaker 2: There have been fifteen government shutdowns in the last forty
[0:14] Speaker 2: four years, but no president has ever used a shutdown
[0:18] Speaker 2: to fire large numbers of federal employees until Donald Trump.
[0:23] Speaker 2: Even before the shutdown began, Trump threatened to fire federal workers,
[0:28] Speaker 2: and he's made good on those threats. According to court filings,
[0:32] Speaker 2: at least four thousand federal workers across different agencies have
[0:37] Speaker 2: already been fired. Trump blames it on the Democrats.
[0:42] Speaker 3: Take your place right now, and it's all because of
[0:44] Speaker 3: the Democrats. The Democrats are causing the loss of a
[0:48] Speaker 3: lot of jobs with their Uh, it's a shutdown. It's
[0:51] Speaker 3: their shutdown, not our shutdown. It's their shutdown.
[0:54] Speaker 2: To be clear, the firings are different from the furloughs
[0:58] Speaker 2: that always occur when government funding runs out, and this
[1:01] Speaker 2: unprecedented action by the Trump administration puts the government in
[1:07] Speaker 2: unsharted legal territory because there's no law, rule, or regulation
[1:13] Speaker 2: that gives the president licensed to fire federal employees just
[1:17] Speaker 2: because funding has lapsed. Joining me is constitutional law expert
[1:22] Speaker 2: David Super, a professor at Georgetown Law. He's written about
[1:25] Speaker 2: the firings in the Balkanization, a blog of constitutional law
[1:31] Speaker 2: scholars David No administration has ever engaged in large scale
[1:36] Speaker 2: firings of federal workers during a shutdown before, so there'll
[1:41] Speaker 2: be no legal case directly on point. But is it legal.
[1:45] Speaker 1: It pretty clearly is not legal for them to do it.
[1:49] Speaker 1: For one thing, there's a lapse in appropriations right now,
[1:53] Speaker 1: so laying people off requires government activity that is not funded.
[1:59] Speaker 1: So simply we think of a layoff as a negative thing,
[2:03] Speaker 1: but it takes positive action to figure out who you're
[2:06] Speaker 1: going to lay off, what date you're going to lay
[2:09] Speaker 1: them off, send them a message, and so on. Those
[2:11] Speaker 1: are all non emergency actions that the government can't do
[2:15] Speaker 1: when it's unfunded. So right there, that makes it illegal.
[2:19] Speaker 2: The first challenge is likely to be based on the
[2:22] Speaker 2: Anti Deficiency Act, So tell us what the Anti Deficiency
[2:27] Speaker 2: Act is.
[2:28] Speaker 1: Well, the Constitution says that no funds shall be drawn
[2:31] Speaker 1: from the treasury except if appropriated by Congress, and the
[2:36] Speaker 1: Anti Deficiency Act is a law Congress has passed and
[2:40] Speaker 1: revised many times to implement the appropriation's clause to make
[2:44] Speaker 1: sure that people aren't just spending public money or committing
[2:49] Speaker 1: public money on their own. The Anti Deficiency Act basically
[2:54] Speaker 1: says that it is a crime for a government official
[2:58] Speaker 1: to spend public money without an appropriation. It also says
[3:03] Speaker 1: it's a crime to accept voluntary service. The reason it
[3:07] Speaker 1: says it's a crime to accept voluntary service is because
[3:10] Speaker 1: Congress has been around that game plenty of times, where
[3:14] Speaker 1: someone works supposedly for free and then turns around and
[3:18] Speaker 1: wants to be paid, so they said, no, we don't
[3:20] Speaker 1: even allow you to take volunteer labor unless there's an
[3:24] Speaker 1: appropriation to cover the cost.
[3:26] Speaker 2: Has anyone ever been prosecuted under that law.
[3:30] Speaker 1: There hasn't been, perhaps not surprisingly because the people who
[3:35] Speaker 1: would violate it would be members of the same administration
[3:39] Speaker 1: as the Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department,
[3:42] Speaker 1: but also frankly because people take it very seriously. And
[3:47] Speaker 1: I have been involved in a number of cases where
[3:52] Speaker 1: government lawyers will do just about anything except something that
[3:56] Speaker 1: looks like it might be a violation of the Anti
[3:58] Speaker 1: Deficiency Act, and they will dig in their heels and
[4:02] Speaker 1: stand on their head to avoid being seen as going
[4:05] Speaker 1: crosswise to that which I admire.
[4:07] Speaker 2: So what might the administration's response be to lawsuits challenging
[4:13] Speaker 2: the firings under the Anti Deficiency Act.
[4:17] Speaker 1: It's a little unclear, but they seem to be saying
[4:20] Speaker 1: that this is an inherent power of the president, which
[4:24] Speaker 1: is pretty strange, because everything the government does, particularly under
[4:29] Speaker 1: their unified executive theory, is a power of the president.
[4:33] Speaker 1: So does that mean that this inherent power of the president,
[4:37] Speaker 1: which they can't locate anywhere in the Constitution, overrides the
[4:42] Speaker 1: appropriation's clause, which absolutely does appear in the text of
[4:46] Speaker 1: the Constitution. It's a very strange argument.
[4:48] Speaker 2: The second possible problem here some of the firings might
[4:52] Speaker 2: be illegal impoundments of appropriated funds where unexpired appropriations remain
[4:58] Speaker 2: available to pay the terminated employees.
[5:02] Speaker 1: Yes, the Supreme Court in nineteen seventy five ruled unanimously
[5:08] Speaker 1: that President Nixon could not refuse to spend money that
[5:13] Speaker 1: Congress had appropriated, that that's not within the powers of
[5:16] Speaker 1: the president. Justice Rnquist signed on to that. Justice Douglas
[5:20] Speaker 1: agreed with that result. Everybody of all perspectives on the
[5:24] Speaker 1: Court said, no, the president cannot overrule a congressional appropriation
[5:30] Speaker 1: unless Congress makes the spending conditional on the president's choice.
[5:35] Speaker 1: So when Congress has, for example, provided funding for the
[5:40] Speaker 1: Cenators for Disease Control or the Office of Special Education
[5:44] Speaker 1: or Community Economic Development. Those funds must be spent by
[5:49] Speaker 1: the president. You can't spend money on the Centers for
[5:54] Speaker 1: Disease Controls staff if the staff are gone. So he
[5:58] Speaker 1: is effectively setting himself up to refusing to spend money
[6:02] Speaker 1: that Congress appropriated. That's not appropriate.
[6:05] Speaker 2: And in some of these lawsuits that have been brought
[6:08] Speaker 2: about the massive federal layoffs initially initiated by Elon Musk,
[6:15] Speaker 2: has a Supreme Court taken a position on this.
[6:20] Speaker 1: The Supreme Court has not reached the merits of any
[6:23] Speaker 1: of these cases. They have indicated that they don't want
[6:28] Speaker 1: the government order to spend money until a case has
[6:32] Speaker 1: been firmly resolved. But that's not based on the merits
[6:36] Speaker 1: of the case, but just on the sense that if
[6:39] Speaker 1: the government spends the money, it could never get it
[6:41] Speaker 1: back if it ultimately wins the case. So, the only
[6:44] Speaker 1: decisions we really have from the Supreme Court or the
[6:47] Speaker 1: unanimous decision from nineteen seventy five that says the president
[6:51] Speaker 1: has no inherent authority to impound money and a six y'
[6:55] Speaker 1: to three decision from nineteen ninety eight that said that
[6:58] Speaker 1: even when Congress allowed hell the president to impound money,
[7:01] Speaker 1: he still can't do it.
[7:03] Speaker 2: But neither of those are from the Roberts Court, which,
[7:07] Speaker 2: as you know, has expanded presidential authority in ways that
[7:12] Speaker 2: most scholars thought they never would. So is the Roberts
[7:16] Speaker 2: Court perhaps going to be different?
[7:18] Speaker 1: Well, there's only one justice currently sitting who is sitting
[7:22] Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety eight, and that's Justice Thomas, and he
[7:25] Speaker 1: voted with the majority that even when authorized by Congress,
[7:30] Speaker 1: the president may not impound money. The Court, in the
[7:34] Speaker 1: opinion that Justice Thomas signed on to, said that's effectively
[7:38] Speaker 1: giving the president the power to amend the law, and
[7:42] Speaker 1: under our constitution, only Congress can amend laws.
[7:45] Speaker 2: The third ground to challenge the firings that you mentioned
[7:48] Speaker 2: in your article is that the action likely violates permanent
[7:52] Speaker 2: laws creating and assigning duties to the agencies affected. Explain
[7:58] Speaker 2: that argument.
[8:00] Speaker 1: Certainly, we don't just come upon these government agencies by chance.
[8:05] Speaker 1: They're generally created by Congress. So the Congress has passed
[8:10] Speaker 1: a law calling for the Center for Disease Control saying
[8:14] Speaker 1: that it is vitally important to the nation's protection against
[8:18] Speaker 1: disease and needs to have the resources to respond. You
[8:22] Speaker 1: don't have the resource to respond if all your staff
[8:25] Speaker 1: is at the Unemployment Office. So this is effectively a
[8:29] Speaker 1: violation of the law creating the Centers for Disease Control. Similarly,
[8:34] Speaker 1: there's a law creating the Office of Special Education at
[8:36] Speaker 1: the Department of Education, giving it a lot of very
[8:40] Speaker 1: heavy responsibilities. It can't perform that if it doesn't have
[8:44] Speaker 1: any people, and that's true for pretty much all of
[8:47] Speaker 1: the agencies affected here. Congress has told the president is
[8:51] Speaker 1: to get this done. It has provided the money to
[8:53] Speaker 1: get this done, and the president's refusing to get this done.
[8:57] Speaker 2: In some of the preliminary cases, though I can think
[9:00] Speaker 2: of the Department of Education cases, the Supreme Court has
[9:04] Speaker 2: allowed the President to keep doing what he's doing, though
[9:08] Speaker 2: right they haven't put a stop on his firing people
[9:11] Speaker 2: or not using funds.
[9:14] Speaker 1: They haven't, again, not because they've said it's legally correct,
[9:19] Speaker 1: but because they've said that they don't want any interim
[9:23] Speaker 1: orders to the president compelling this, because the president wouldn't
[9:28] Speaker 1: be able to get the money back if the case
[9:31] Speaker 1: was ultimately decided in the president's favor. Once these cases
[9:36] Speaker 1: have worked their way through the system, which I think
[9:38] Speaker 1: is very possible in the current Supreme Court term. We'll
[9:42] Speaker 1: now know what the current court thinks about all these things,
[9:46] Speaker 1: and at that point, I think it'll be very easy
[9:49] Speaker 1: to get emergency orders against them from doing something that
[9:53] Speaker 1: we've recently been told to is illegal.
[9:55] Speaker 2: That would certainly be a change from the emergency docket. Okay,
[9:59] Speaker 2: stay with me. Coming up next, I'll continue this conversation
[10:02] Speaker 2: with constitutional law professor David Super of Georgetown Law. After
[10:07] Speaker 2: the shutdown, what legal action can federal workers who were
[10:11] Speaker 2: fired take? Hundreds of thousands of government workers have been
[10:15] Speaker 2: furloughed in recent days, and in a court filing on Friday,
[10:19] Speaker 2: the Office of Management and Budget said well over four
[10:23] Speaker 2: thousand federal employees would soon be fired in conjunction with
[10:27] Speaker 2: the shutdown. Labor unions have already filed a lawsuit to
[10:31] Speaker 2: stop the move by President Trump's budget office, which goes
[10:35] Speaker 2: far beyond what usually happens in a government shutdown. No
[10:39] Speaker 2: president before has used a shutdown to fire large numbers
[10:43] Speaker 2: of federal employees. I've been talking to constitutional law professor
[10:48] Speaker 2: David Super of Georgetown Law, who's written about the various
[10:52] Speaker 2: ways the shutdown can be challenged. A final ground you
[10:56] Speaker 2: mentioned in your article is that this action and likely
[11:00] Speaker 2: violates several civil service laws, because the Trump administration may
[11:07] Speaker 2: not have complied with every single requirement in civil service laws,
[11:12] Speaker 2: and there must be a lot of civil service laws
[11:14] Speaker 2: about this.
[11:16] Speaker 1: There are, and there are very detailed laws about prioritizing
[11:21] Speaker 1: who gets laid off when there is a layoff. There's
[11:25] Speaker 1: no clear evidence that they've followed that. There are laws
[11:29] Speaker 1: about giving people who are more senior the opportunity to
[11:32] Speaker 1: bid for other jobs in the government. Nothing that I've
[11:36] Speaker 1: seen in the layoff notices that have been shared with me,
[11:40] Speaker 1: or that I've read in news accounts suggests they're doing
[11:43] Speaker 1: anything of that. And most fundamentally, there is very extensive
[11:48] Speaker 1: civil service law against politicizing the civil service. And the
[11:53] Speaker 1: President has said he's laying people off from Democrat agencies.
[11:59] Speaker 1: I thought they United States agencies, but apparently he considers
[12:03] Speaker 1: them Democrat agencies and laying people off on the basis
[12:07] Speaker 1: of their political beliefs because they're perceived to be Democrats
[12:11] Speaker 1: and Democrat agencies violate several provisions of civil service law
[12:17] Speaker 1: against politicizing our civil service.
[12:20] Speaker 2: The main government workers' unions filed a lawsuit on September thirtieth,
[12:26] Speaker 2: even before the shutdown began, and also the AFLCIO did.
[12:31] Speaker 2: Has the Supreme Court rejected the idea of standing by
[12:36] Speaker 2: unions in this kind of situation.
[12:38] Speaker 1: It's said very little. But there was a case brought
[12:43] Speaker 1: by unions and nonprofits against layoffs in the spring and
[12:48] Speaker 1: the Supreme Court stayed. It froze the lower court's injunction
[12:54] Speaker 1: and said that it had concerns about the standing of
[12:56] Speaker 1: the plaintiffs. Like so many of these shadow docat descis,
[13:00] Speaker 1: it didn't say what those concerns were. It didn't give
[13:03] Speaker 1: us any sense as to whether it thinks these plaintiffs
[13:06] Speaker 1: are hopeless or whether it thinks their lawyers just filled
[13:08] Speaker 1: out the paperwork wrong.
[13:10] Speaker 2: In this case, you had Russell Vought on social media saying,
[13:14] Speaker 2: you know the rifts are coming. And as you mentioned before,
[13:17] Speaker 2: the Anti Deficiency Act is pretty well known to government officials.
[13:22] Speaker 2: So is it the case that the career officials are
[13:27] Speaker 2: gone or are not advising against actions that will clearly
[13:34] Speaker 2: lead to lawsuits where the government is not in the
[13:37] Speaker 2: best position.
[13:39] Speaker 1: A lot of Queer people are gone, fired or encouraged
[13:43] Speaker 1: to retire or to leave by various waves of actions
[13:47] Speaker 1: in departments and by those generally, others have been made
[13:51] Speaker 1: very clear that their opinions are unwelcome. Indeed, when you
[13:55] Speaker 1: see someone raising concerns about violations of law and that
[14:00] Speaker 1: person is promptly fired, you don't raise them yourself. And
[14:03] Speaker 1: that's completely contrary to the system we've had for a
[14:07] Speaker 1: long time. The courts have trusted the United States government
[14:11] Speaker 1: precisely because there was a corps of career people, lawyers
[14:15] Speaker 1: and others who were very careful that they always followed
[14:18] Speaker 1: the law. Political officials can make the policy choices, that's
[14:22] Speaker 1: why we have elections, but the law is permanent until
[14:26] Speaker 1: someone changes it, and career people have quite properly refused
[14:31] Speaker 1: to do illegal things throughout the years. That safety net
[14:35] Speaker 1: of honorable career people has been ripped apart.
[14:40] Speaker 2: Do you think this is President Trump once again testing
[14:43] Speaker 2: and trying to expand his powers or is it just
[14:48] Speaker 2: his theme of there's too much federal government, too many workers,
[14:52] Speaker 2: and I want to cut it down.
[14:54] Speaker 1: He's suggested that this is political retribution, that he's doing
[14:59] Speaker 1: this to punish Senate Democrats for not agreeing to the
[15:03] Speaker 1: legislation that his administration wrote without changes. So I have
[15:09] Speaker 1: to assume that this is an effort to play politics
[15:13] Speaker 1: and put pressure on the Democrats to fold in the
[15:15] Speaker 1: current standoffs.
[15:17] Speaker 2: Now, if federal workers are fired during the shutdown afterwards,
[15:22] Speaker 2: what's their avenue of appeal? Do they try to go
[15:25] Speaker 2: to the Merit System's Protection Board.
[15:28] Speaker 1: There have been courts that say that if they believe
[15:30] Speaker 1: they've been fired improperly, they must go to the Merit
[15:33] Speaker 1: System's Protection Board. But that's not going to work very well.
[15:36] Speaker 1: Because President Trump I legally fired the only Democratic member
[15:41] Speaker 1: of the board, it now doesn't have a quorum and
[15:44] Speaker 1: can't hear their cases. President Trump could have appointed a
[15:48] Speaker 1: replacement for that person he fired, but he's not chosen
[15:51] Speaker 1: to do so, so he has effectively disabled the body
[15:57] Speaker 1: responsible for policing his own actions.
[16:00] Speaker 2: What about the civil service laws? It seems likely that
[16:03] Speaker 2: the Trump administration did not follow the civil service law?
[16:06] Speaker 2: So is that an avenue of appealing their termination or
[16:09] Speaker 2: getting back pay?
[16:11] Speaker 1: In theory, they would go to the Merit Systems Protection
[16:15] Speaker 1: Board and if it ruled against them, they could take
[16:18] Speaker 1: that to court. But in practice they're not getting any
[16:21] Speaker 1: rulings favorable or unfavorable from the Merit System Protection Board
[16:26] Speaker 1: because it can't function without a quorum thanks to President
[16:29] Speaker 1: Trump's illegal firing of its Democratic member, so they're really
[16:34] Speaker 1: stuck in a tramp. In past times, the Supreme Court
[16:39] Speaker 1: has said, if appealing to an administrative body would be
[16:43] Speaker 1: clearly feudle, you don't have to do it. You can
[16:46] Speaker 1: go straight to court. This Supreme Court seems less likely
[16:49] Speaker 1: to go in that direction.
[16:51] Speaker 2: So much these days seems to depend on the Supreme Court,
[16:55] Speaker 2: and we will watch how this litigation unfolds. Thanks so much, David.
[16:59] Speaker 2: As always, that's Professor David super of Georgetown Law. Luigi
[17:05] Speaker 2: Mangioni's lawyers are asking a New York federal judge to
[17:09] Speaker 2: dismiss some criminal charges, including the only count for which
[17:14] Speaker 2: he could face the death penalty. His lawyers also said
[17:18] Speaker 2: that prosecutors should be prevented from using at trial his
[17:21] Speaker 2: statements to law enforcement officers and his backpack where a
[17:25] Speaker 2: gun and ammunition were found. They say Mangioni was not
[17:29] Speaker 2: read his rights before he was questioned by law enforcement officers.
[17:34] Speaker 2: They added that the officers did not obtain a warrant
[17:37] Speaker 2: before searching Mangioni's backpack. The twenty seven year old has
[17:41] Speaker 2: pleaded not guilty to state in federal charges in the
[17:45] Speaker 2: fatal shooting of healthcare executive Brian Thompson on December fourth,
[17:50] Speaker 2: as he arrived at a Manhattan hotel for his company's
[17:53] Speaker 2: annual investor conference. Pat tell us about the charges that
[17:57] Speaker 2: the defenses asking the judge to drop against Mangoni.
[18:02] Speaker 4: These two counts, especially count three, murder using a firearm,
[18:06] Speaker 4: is the death penalty eligible count. It makes sense for
[18:10] Speaker 4: Luigi's Mangion's criminal defense lawyers to make this argument because
[18:13] Speaker 4: that would basically stop the government or block the government
[18:18] Speaker 4: from putting him to death if a jury would find
[18:22] Speaker 4: him guilty and then decide that he should face the
[18:25] Speaker 4: death penalty. It's always a two part thing, of course,
[18:28] Speaker 4: you know that. So basically that's the effort to try
[18:31] Speaker 4: to hamper the government from proceeding with the two gun charges.
[18:35] Speaker 4: Count four is using a firearm. But basically Mangion's lawyers
[18:40] Speaker 4: are saying, you know, he's accused of stalking, and one
[18:44] Speaker 4: of them is cyber stalking, and his lawyers are saying
[18:47] Speaker 4: there's no evidence. So these things don't feed into each other.
[18:51] Speaker 4: So it's sort of like a natural chain of failing
[18:55] Speaker 4: to prove their case, prove it up to support the
[18:58] Speaker 4: counts three and four.
[19:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, there's saying stalking isn't a crime of violence, right right.
[19:04] Speaker 4: And it shouldn't trigger automatically the capital punishment, which is
[19:08] Speaker 4: what the DOJ and Pam Bondi has said. The defense
[19:12] Speaker 4: has gone on overdrive to try to assail the way
[19:15] Speaker 4: the government came upon the death penalty. I mean, typically
[19:19] Speaker 4: what has happened. I mean, not only did Joe Biden's
[19:22] Speaker 4: administration put a pause on the death penalty for a
[19:26] Speaker 4: while there, and of course when Trump came back in,
[19:29] Speaker 4: he took it off in his attorney general did not
[19:33] Speaker 4: use We've talked about this before. There's a death panel,
[19:37] Speaker 4: which basically at DOJ hears a presentation from the defense
[19:41] Speaker 4: about whether or not they're mitigating circumstances that the person
[19:44] Speaker 4: should not face the death penalty. So these were skipped over,
[19:48] Speaker 4: according to Mangione's lawyers, And now they're basically attacking the
[19:53] Speaker 4: way the government came upon this indictment, that it's flawed.
[19:57] Speaker 2: Yeah, now, something I found this very They're saying that
[20:02] Speaker 2: prosecutors should be barred from using some statements he made
[20:05] Speaker 2: to police before he was arrested, and evidence found inside
[20:09] Speaker 2: his backpack, which includes a gun and ammunition, because the
[20:13] Speaker 2: police didn't read his miranda rights to him before questioning
[20:17] Speaker 2: him and didn't get a warrant before searching his backpack.
[20:21] Speaker 4: Yeah, they described it. It's incredible. I mean, so the
[20:24] Speaker 4: scenario we've all heard is, you know that here he
[20:26] Speaker 4: was and Manjion was, you know, approached by Altuna police
[20:32] Speaker 4: and you know, immediately they found his backpack and they
[20:38] Speaker 4: arrested him. And you know, it's a story that his
[20:42] Speaker 4: lawyers challenge, saying that they had video bodycam footage as well,
[20:47] Speaker 4: and they showed outtakes that they have. But one of
[20:50] Speaker 4: the female officers, she picks up his backpack, She doesn't
[20:55] Speaker 4: ask for it, She just grabs it, picks it up
[20:58] Speaker 4: and takes it away from him and starts rooting around
[21:01] Speaker 4: in it and looking around and picking through it, and
[21:04] Speaker 4: she finds things such as the gun and the ammunition,
[21:09] Speaker 4: as well as his alleged diary, which the prosecution is
[21:13] Speaker 4: called a manifesto. But all this evidence was done before
[21:18] Speaker 4: they ever got a search warrant, and the female officer
[21:21] Speaker 4: claimed that she was worried about him having a bomb,
[21:25] Speaker 4: so she has to basically take action to stop this
[21:29] Speaker 4: potential bomb from going off, but she never gets a
[21:32] Speaker 4: warrant and they don't get it according to the defense,
[21:35] Speaker 4: for seven hours.
[21:38] Speaker 2: Seven hours is a long time by any standard, and
[21:42] Speaker 2: they wouldn't let him leave. They even later took him
[21:45] Speaker 2: into custody. They questioned him, but they didn't read him
[21:49] Speaker 2: his Miranda rights until later.
[21:51] Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it is pretty incredible because apparently hours
[21:55] Speaker 4: go by that he was questioned and they got comments
[21:59] Speaker 4: from him, but they said that he wasn't under arrest.
[22:03] Speaker 4: They said, like, don't worry, you're not under arrest. But
[22:05] Speaker 4: then bodycam footage shows that he's initially approached by one
[22:10] Speaker 4: of them. He's asked if he's the shooter. He asks
[22:13] Speaker 4: him his name, he gives a different name, and then
[22:17] Speaker 4: they don't tell him anything. An officer telling him he
[22:20] Speaker 4: was one hundred percent sure that man Gion matched the suspect,
[22:25] Speaker 4: but he never said you're under arrest. And then they
[22:28] Speaker 4: surround him, according to the video, and block him from leaving,
[22:32] Speaker 4: and they start questioning him, and I think he'd already
[22:36] Speaker 4: been sitting there, and they said that he provoked concern
[22:38] Speaker 4: because he was there for forty minutes and that he
[22:42] Speaker 4: could be charged with loitery. But then they wouldn't let
[22:45] Speaker 4: him leave, and then one of the officers, another officer,
[22:49] Speaker 4: tells one of the patrol men, you should mirandize him,
[22:52] Speaker 4: and they still didn't mirandize him until it seems much
[22:55] Speaker 4: later when they got to the station.
[22:58] Speaker 2: I mean, they're stopping him from leaving, they have him
[23:01] Speaker 2: in custody, they're questioning him. It seems like there are
[23:04] Speaker 2: several points at which they should have mirandized him.
[23:08] Speaker 4: Right And then basically he'd been sitting there and they
[23:11] Speaker 4: questioned him and they started looking at his material and
[23:16] Speaker 4: all of this happens. So without a warrant and without
[23:19] Speaker 4: being mirandized, they wouldn't let him leave. And yet they
[23:22] Speaker 4: took him into custody. But they never said you're under
[23:24] Speaker 4: arrest and you have the right to remain silent. So
[23:27] Speaker 4: he may have said incriminating statements, but the defense is
[23:30] Speaker 4: saying that they knew they were going to get these
[23:33] Speaker 4: statements and they never bothered to mirandize him.
[23:36] Speaker 2: I'm surprised that this hasn't come out before.
[23:40] Speaker 4: Well, I guess what they're also getting now is they
[23:42] Speaker 4: have copies of the body cam footage and in real
[23:46] Speaker 4: time they can see how it transpired, and then they
[23:48] Speaker 4: can have to re engineer backwards what happened, like the
[23:52] Speaker 4: TikTok of what happened.
[23:54] Speaker 2: Suppose the judge doesn't allow in the evidence from the back,
[24:00] Speaker 2: how much would that hurt the case.
[24:03] Speaker 4: It's quite an ask by Luigiman Jion's lawyers to do this,
[24:08] Speaker 4: but it does seem like the fruits of an attainted search,
[24:12] Speaker 4: right and then if you questioned someone and didn't mirandize them.
[24:17] Speaker 4: There are cases that defense sites where this has actually
[24:20] Speaker 4: happened that there are other cases where courts have thrown
[24:24] Speaker 4: out charges based on the fact that it wasn't what
[24:27] Speaker 4: the cops used to say when I covered them a
[24:30] Speaker 4: homicide cops. It wasn't righteous. So I'm clear if they'll
[24:33] Speaker 4: get this request granted by the court, but they have
[24:38] Speaker 4: a pretty strong argument whether or not this judge will
[24:42] Speaker 4: do that. Also, remember they're dealing with this extraordinary circumstance
[24:47] Speaker 4: that you have the President of the United States and
[24:49] Speaker 4: high ranking Justice Department officials making comments, So you know,
[24:54] Speaker 4: all of this might come together as a package of
[24:57] Speaker 4: troubling questions the judge has.
[25:00] Speaker 2: And Patty just remind us about what the Judge instructed
[25:03] Speaker 2: Justice Department officials last month about making those kind of
[25:08] Speaker 2: incendiary statements.
[25:10] Speaker 4: The judge has basically ordered the government to explain how
[25:15] Speaker 4: these statements got to be made. And to remind you,
[25:18] Speaker 4: there was a statement by President Trump who said, man
[25:23] Speaker 4: gie own quote shot someone in the back as clear
[25:25] Speaker 4: as you're looking at me, as he told Fox News.
[25:28] Speaker 4: And then a White House affiliated x account retweeted what
[25:34] Speaker 4: Trump said in a screenshot, posting with photo with Fox
[25:39] Speaker 4: News and quoting Trump. And then that post was retweeted
[25:44] Speaker 4: by the deputy director of the Department of Justice of
[25:47] Speaker 4: Public Affairs, and that person said, you know, potus is
[25:52] Speaker 4: absolutely right on X. So then another person, the White
[25:56] Speaker 4: House Press Secretary, again repeated that she called him a
[26:02] Speaker 4: left wing assassin who shot United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson
[26:07] Speaker 4: in the back. And she says that from a White
[26:09] Speaker 4: House briefing at the White House. So you know, his
[26:13] Speaker 4: lawyers are saying all these statements is a confluence of
[26:17] Speaker 4: negative statements that are basically poisoning any potential jury, and
[26:22] Speaker 4: it's farming his rights to right to get a fair
[26:24] Speaker 4: trial because everyone will be so prejudiced because, look, the
[26:27] Speaker 4: President of the United States is saying these things. The
[26:30] Speaker 4: judges asked for an explanation, and the government has answered
[26:34] Speaker 4: in a recent reply. Federal prosecutors in the Southern District
[26:39] Speaker 4: in Manhattan have said, it's nothing to see here because
[26:42] Speaker 4: technically the people who made these comments are not prosecutors
[26:47] Speaker 4: on the case, so they're not addressing what Donald Trump
[26:52] Speaker 4: or anyone a DOJ or anybody in the White House
[26:55] Speaker 4: Press secretary said.
[26:56] Speaker 2: In a case as big as this, you know, with
[26:59] Speaker 2: so much publicity on this case, it would take a
[27:03] Speaker 2: lot for the judge to, for example, dismiss a charge
[27:07] Speaker 2: or suppress some of that crucial evidence like the gun
[27:10] Speaker 2: and ammunition. Although I have to say it does seem
[27:14] Speaker 2: like the police didn't follow proper procedures, you know, the
[27:18] Speaker 2: basics of mirandizing him. And if you think there's a
[27:22] Speaker 2: bomb in a backpack, don't you call the bomb squad
[27:25] Speaker 2: or do you just rifle through the backpack? But still,
[27:28] Speaker 2: despite that, this is a huge case, and I'm not
[27:31] Speaker 2: sure what the judge would be willing to do.
[27:34] Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely an attempt by the defense
[27:38] Speaker 4: to hamper whatever the government's doing, and whether that means
[27:43] Speaker 4: carving out two charges, including one that's death penalty eligible,
[27:46] Speaker 4: that obviously is this latest request. Right, they've already asked
[27:50] Speaker 4: to dismiss the indictmentment. They're saying they're targeting specifically these
[27:54] Speaker 4: two counts, especially the death penalty eligible count, which is
[27:58] Speaker 4: Count three. And then you know, it's a big ask.
[28:01] Speaker 4: And I mean, aside from those cases rare cases cided
[28:04] Speaker 4: by the defense, it does seem extraordinary that the judge
[28:08] Speaker 4: would grant it, but I think it's what their defense
[28:10] Speaker 4: is trying to do. They'd give their best shot, so
[28:13] Speaker 4: to speak.
[28:13] Speaker 2: You know, if this were law in order, the judge
[28:15] Speaker 2: would grant it, though very quickly. So this is the
[28:19] Speaker 2: federal case. We also have the state case, which is
[28:23] Speaker 2: going to go to trial first.
[28:24] Speaker 4: It's odd, but the state case, even though it's allegedly
[28:29] Speaker 4: going first, and the state prosecutors have told the judge
[28:32] Speaker 4: and the state case they're going to have the first trial,
[28:36] Speaker 4: it seems like all systems are go with the defense
[28:39] Speaker 4: focusing on the federal case. Whether that's because they're trying
[28:44] Speaker 4: to attack that first, because they think that's the best
[28:47] Speaker 4: paths to take. It's unclear.
[28:49] Speaker 2: It could be because they're focusing on the death penalty
[28:51] Speaker 2: and trying to knock that out of the federal case.
[28:55] Speaker 2: But I guess we'll find out as it goes along.
[28:57] Speaker 2: Thanks so much, pat. That's Bloomberg Legal reporter Patricia Hurtado,
[29:02] Speaker 2: and that's it for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show.
[29:04] Speaker 2: Remember you can always get the latest legal news on
[29:07] Speaker 2: our Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
[29:11] Speaker 2: and at www dot bloomberg dot com, slash podcast Slash Law,
[29:17] Speaker 2: And remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every
[29:19] Speaker 2: weeknight at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso,
[29:23] Speaker 2: and you're listening to Bloomberg

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.