Press access spat adds to fears of circus around Luigi Mangione murder trial

Weeks before Luigi Mangione faces a jury over the killing of the UnitedHealthcare executive Brian Thompson, the hugely anticipated proceedings already have potential to reach trial-of-the-century status.Intense global interest in Mangione’s case is unfolding against a media landscape where news consumers expect minute-by-minute updates, a mise-en-scène now made all the more complicated by social media influencers who managed to get press credentials and often flock to major US criminal cases in search of clicks and money.The Mangione trial is certainly ripe for the headlines. He is accused of gunning down Thompson on the streets of Manhattan, triggering an intense manhunt that ended with his arrest in a Pennsylvania fast-food restaurant. But it also sparked an outpouring of public anger over America’s widely reviled for-profit healthcare firms and their practices. While awaiting trial, Mangione has attracted a small but vociferous group of supporters who almost see him as a political prisoner.The present media access plan for the trial, which does not include an overflow room to accommodate outsize press and public interest, only adds to fears that Mangione’s trial will become a circus. Mangione’s team and prosecutors are trading barbs over this issue and the defense moves suggest media chaos might be exactly what they want.Indeed, Mangione’s defense lodged sensational allegations about press access in a letter to Judge Gregory Carro late last week.Mangione’s team objected to “partial exclusion” of the public and press. They said court administrators and prosecutors engaged in “hand-choosing the reporters permitted to attend the proceeding”. They alleged that only six journalists will be permitted to cover jury selection, “in a dramatic break from customary practice”. These machinations took place, they claimed, without defense knowledge or participation.They demanded lists of names, for the six journalists covering jury selection, scheduled for 8 September, and for 68 reporters on a reserved seating list – and asked for a hearing about which journalists were “granted general access” to the 8 September trial. Whatever collusion and exclusion might be happening, they argued, threatened Mangione’s sixth amendment right to an open trial.But news coverage of this letter to Carro swiftly debunked the claims about the court coverage processes, including false accusations of prosecutor involvement in journalist selection. Over the next few days, this narrative lost still more steam.Manhattan prosecutors told Carro in a 3 August letter they had “no role in developing” court administrators’ media access plan and “will have no role in selecting which news reporters attend the trial”.Mangione’s team responded with a letter “to clarify their position”, saying they had “no personal knowledge” about whether court administrators and prosecutors discussed press access issues in his case, but wanted to know whether there was any discussion between them and court administrators.This defense and prosecution barb-trading over media access presages how Mangione’s trial is primed to spiral into feverish disinformation. .“I was as surprised as anyone by the defense claim that prosecutors were even indirectly hand-picking reporters,” said Laura Italiano, a freelance journalist who is covering the Mangione trial. “This is in no way true.”Experts say that Mangione’s trial could proceed more smoothly – if steps were taken to improve access.As for jury selection, there would be a limit on reporters in the courtroom – given that Mangione’s case has the same logistical constraints of all high-profile proceedings. With nearly all courtroom seats filled by prospective jurors, there is limited space for the media in this process.“That is where the pool comes in,” Italiano said, later explaining, “We let the rest of the journalists know what’s going on.”Italiano pointed to two prominent examples of this pool system in jury selection: Donald Trump’s 2024 hush-money trial, and Sean “Diddy” Combs’s 2001 nightclub shooting trial. The media organizes its pool for those limited seats; this rotating group distributes notes to all journalists present who, due to the space constraints, cannot be in the courtroom.“It’s usually chosen by agreement of the veteran reporters who have covered that court. It’s never acrimonious,” Italiano said. “It’s because everyone knows they’re going to get the information.”As for the defense claim that a pool breaks from “customary practice” and excludes certain media, Italiano said: “No, that is absolutely false.”The defense has requested a video feed to an overflow courtroom.Experts believe an overflow room could lessen this acrimony.“There was universal shock when the state court system announced that the press plan was not to have an overflow room,” Italiano said. “Every big trial where there is this kind of demand for coverage has had overflow courtrooms.”“It seems like the whole problem could be solved by having an overflow courtroom, which is routinely done,” said Ron Kuby, a defense attorney whose practice focuses on civil rights.“I don’t understand what’s going on here, but it doesn’t seem to make any sense, hence this sort of sniping back and forth between the prosecution and the defense,” Kuby said, again pointing out: “It’s not difficult. It is done, not uncommonly, in high-profile trials.”Court administrators did not respond to requests for comment. Lawyers for Mangione, who maintains his innocence, declined to comment.Asked for comment, the Manhattan district attorney’s office referred to their letter that rejected claims of working with court administrators. A spokesperson said they do not have a say in selecting reporters.“New York state courts do not allow streaming of the proceedings outside of the courthouse. That’s why you’ll never see New York state trials on TV, as there is no streaming allowed under New York state rules,” Seth Zuckerman, founder of Zuckerman Legal Group and a former New York prosecutor, said. “What they’ve done in prior cases is they set up an overflow room for reporters who there is not enough room for in the courtroom, so that they could follow along in real time.”For Erik S Groothuis, a partner with Schlam Stone & Dolan, the defense letters seemed “a bit dramatic”.“It seems to me they’re trying to do everything they can, as careful lawyers, to create appellate issues,” Groothuis said. “Whether these six journalists versus some other six are in there, I’m not sure it matters a whole lot, but they’re just trying to grab for every piece of leverage they can, and create issues that they might be able to leverage for appeal.”As for the defense request for a list of reporters, he said, “I’ve never heard of that.”“This is some interesting posturing,” Roy S Gutterman, director of the Newhouse School’s Tully Center for Free Speech at Syracuse University, said. “I do not think an overflow room for media should be a concern for any of the litigants, defense or prosecution, as long as there are media present to cover the trial.”“Perhaps, there might be a bigger, more accommodating courtroom to hold the trial in,” he said. “But if the court granted access to every interested reporter or member of the public, they would have to move the trial uptown to Madison Square Garden.”