Shownotes
Ready to find out what’s really at stake in the suppression hearing?
Welcome back to Lawyer Talk, where we go off the record but stay on the air. In this episode, Steve Palmer and Troy Henricksen dive deep into the suppression hearing in the high-profile case of Luigi Mangione—the man accused of shooting Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare.
Together, they break down not just what happened during Mangione’s arrest at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s, but also the crucial legal arguments taking shape around his constitutional rights. Was Mangione truly “in custody” when police cornered and questioned him? Did officers follow Miranda protocols, or did they overstep? What about the search of his backpack, which uncovered a manifesto and firearm—was that lawful, or a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights?
From the nuances of custodial interrogation to the exceptions that allow police searches without a warrant, Steve Palmer brings his 30 years of criminal defense experience to the table, while Troy Henricksen offers insightful questions and analysis from a law student’s perspective. Whether you’re a legal aficionado or just intrigued by courtroom drama, this episode gives you a front-row seat to the arguments and strategies that could shape the outcome of one of the country’s biggest cases.
Moments
00:00 Police Violations of Constitutional Rights
03:34 "Luigi's Suppression Hearing Details"
09:07 Mangione's Freedom Questioned
10:03 "Police-Controlled Environment Analysis"
16:22 "Suppressed Statements Impact Cases"
17:32 "Miranda Rights and Custodial Interrogation"
22:24 "Wingspan Search Exception Debate"
26:02 "Terrorism Charges Dropped"
27:49 "Inventory Search Exception Explained"
30:24 "Search Validity Debate in Court"
33:15 "Legal Insights and Q&A"
Submit your questions to www.lawyertalkpodcast.com.
Recorded at Channel 511.
Stephen E. Palmer, Esq. has been practicing criminal defense almost exclusively since 1995. He has represented people in federal, state, and local courts in Ohio and elsewhere.
Though he focuses on all areas of criminal defense, he particularly enjoys complex cases in state and federal courts.
He has unique experience handling and assembling top defense teams of attorneys and experts in cases involving allegations of child abuse (false sexual allegations, false physical abuse allegations), complex scientific cases involving allegations of DUI and vehicular homicide cases with blood alcohol tests, and any other criminal cases that demand jury trial experience.
Steve has unique experience handling numerous high publicity cases that have garnered national attention.
For more information about Steve and his law firm, visit Palmer Legal Defense.
Copyright 2025 Stephen E. Palmer - Attorney At Law
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcripts
All right, lawyer talk. Off the record, on the air. Check us out. LawyerTalkPodcast.com all the socials. Leave us a question, shoot us a comment. We'll cover it here. Today we're going to take on Luigi Mangione's suppression hearing. Who is Luigi? Well, he's the guy who shot Brian Thompson.
Steve Palmer [:Allegedly shot Brian Thompson. Seems like it's on video. Seems like they can prove it. But anyway, allegedly shot Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare. Cold blooded murder. By every imagination, we're sort of laughing and joking, but it is a cold blooded murder. I often get to like. People ask me all the time, like, well, you said that he's guilty.
Steve Palmer [:Look, I've been defending folks charged with crimes for 30 years. So I have stood with the worst of the worst, the best of the best, all of them across the board.
Steve Palmer [:I appreciate what the defense has to do. I appreciate what the government has to do. It doesn't mean I can't look at obvious evidence and say, they can probably prove that Mangioni shot Thompson. They can probably make the case. But that doesn't mean the defense isn't going to defend it. It doesn't mean they're not going to fight the case. And one of the things they're doing here is they have challenged the admissibility of certain evidence found and obtained when Mangione got arrested. Yep.
Troy Henricksen [:The suppression hearing going on right now.
Steve Palmer [:A suppression hearing. What the heck is a suppression? Well, a suppression motion. It starts with a motion. A motion isn't just people waving around. A motion is a formal written request to, to the judge for some sort of legal remedy. And the formal legal remedy here is suppression. And I'm not going to go into a deep dive here, but a little bit of a dive. The U.S.
Steve Palmer [:supreme Court has held that certain consequences happen when the police violate suspects constitutional rights. Here they're focusing really on maybe three aspects of the Constitution of the Bill of Rights. One would be the Fourth Amendment because there's a search of Mangione's backpack when he's arrested. Another is the Fifth Amendment because Mangione made statements and he theoretically had a right to remain silent. And then the third would be the Sixth Amendment because questioning and fifth and sixth are sort of related here. Questioning occurred outside the presence of an attorney, meaning that he may have violated Mangioni's right to have counsel present. That's more of a stretch because he didn't really have a right to counsel yet anyway. All right, so what happens if the police violate all those rights.
Steve Palmer [:Well, the U.S. supreme Court has said that. That the court should throw out the evidence. So whenever you hear, like on tv, well, they threw out the evidence based on a technicality. Usually they're talking about something like the Bill of Rights.
Troy Henricksen [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:The technicality is usually the police have violated a suspect's constitutional rights. And like it or not, the U.S. supreme Court going all the way back. There's a couple cases. I think Weeks is one.
Troy Henricksen [:That's correct.
Steve Palmer [:And another is Wong sun, which is a cleaning, a dry cleaner out in California.
Troy Henricksen [:That one's way more confusing. That one's a lot harder to follow.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. At any rate, what they say, what the US Supreme Court has said is, all right, police, you violate this guy's constitutional rights. We're going to not we're going to force or we're going to throw out the evidence so they can't use it against you at trial. That's the remedy. Like it, don't like it. And by the way, you're not going to read any of the text of the United States Constitution and find that rule. It's called the exclusionary rule. It's completely prophylactic, invented out of whole clothes.
Steve Palmer [:The US Supreme Court invented. There's an old Scalia decision. I forget the case where he says, well, it's probably time to get rid of the exclusionary rule. That may be true. Who knows? But it still exists. And that's there. And it's there for a reason. Anyway, what's going on? Imagioni?
Troy Henricksen [:So I believe it's been three days now as a suppression hearing. They are going over when the cops receive an anonymous tip in Pennsylvania. They go to McDonald's, where Luigi's at, and the cops approach him and basically surround him in a corner because he's just eating food in the corner. And it's multiple cops. And I use the word surround because it's not just one come up and talk to him. They have him blocked in. At least this is the language that the motion uses, that he kind of has a wall of cops, but the body cam kind of shows something similar to that. And they put the photos in the motion and they begin questioning him, asking him, like, who he is, asking for his id.
Troy Henricksen [:He provides a fake ID to them from New Jersey. They ask him why was he. What was he doing in New York or what's he doing here in Pennsylvania? And then they move the backpack away from him that he has on him and they continue questioning him. I believe at some point they like, stand him up and like, I think they put his. Like, they put his hands on his head or something like that.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. So factually speaking, Mangione's enjoying a nice meal at McDonald's. Yeah. After this shooting, there's an anonymous tip that says, hey, look, there's a dude at McDonald's that looks a lot like the guy on TV pulling the trigger. Yeah. Police respond. I believe it's two patrolmen respond and the patrolman engage Luigi. And immediately.
Steve Palmer [:I think the police will immediately say they thought they recognized him as the guy. They were pretty sure they had the guy. And they start acting like that. They. They. Basically what you're talking about is they surround him where they back him into a corner.
Troy Henricksen [:They didn't back him. He was already in the corner.
Steve Palmer [:In a corner. But. Well, say they keep him in a corner.
Troy Henricksen [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:And they engage in some questioning and eventually arrest him and eventually search his backpack. Now, backtracking during the question, they actually had him raise his hands up early on in this encounter, and the police patted him down. They searched him for weapons.
Steve Palmer [:They don't find any weapons on his person. They sit him back down, and they start to engage in questioning, like, who are you? Do you have identification? What are you doing in New York? Eventually, backup cops arrive. And I think in the motion. The motion alleges one of the officers actually asked one of the backups, has anybody read this guy's rights? No, they still don't read him his rights, but eventually they do read him as Miranda rights. And what does he do?
Troy Henricksen [:Says nothing afterwards.
Steve Palmer [:Says, I want a lawyer. All right. By then, they've already gonna arrest him. They put him in cuffs, and the police eventually search his backpack and find, lo and behold, a manifesto. They find the weapon.
Troy Henricksen [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:They find a gun and some other evidence that may or may not be incriminating. Now the defense is saying, look.
Steve Palmer [:These police have violated Mangione's constitutional rights. And let's break it down. They're basically making two separate arguments. And lawyers love to put stuff in pigeonholes. So that's what we're going to do. Why? Because it makes it easier to understand. The first is the defense team is claiming that the police violated the Miranda.
Steve Palmer [:Prohibition, we'll call it so in Miranda v. Arizona, the U.S. supreme Court, again, out of whole cloth, says, because you're not going to find this in the Constitution, not in the fifth Amendment or anywhere else. The Supreme Court says before interrogating a suspect who is in custody, an interrogation in custody, the police first have to read the suspect the Miranda warnings that You've heard on tv, we're not going to recite them here, but you have a right to remain, sign anything, say it can't anymore, abuse against you, right to have a lawyer present, blah, blah, blah.
Steve Palmer [:And the. So the defense team is saying, look, for practical purposes, both requirements of Miranda are met. One, Mangione is in custody. You're going to make the argument. Troy, what's the argument? That he's in custody.
Troy Henricksen [:So for you to be in custody, the person has to feel like they can't leave.
Steve Palmer [:Let me cut you off. Sorry. We're not talking about, like, what you think on the couch is custody. We're talking about custody in quotes, a term of art. A legally defined term that says an ordinary, reasonable person in similar situation.
Steve Palmer [:Who is not guilty of any crime would feel like they're not free to leave.
Troy Henricksen [:Yes.
Steve Palmer [:All right. So that's custody for Miranda purposes. Make the argument.
Troy Henricksen [:So Luigi is sitting there. He is in a corner. He has nowhere to go. There's no exit. And then a group of cops come up and approach him immediately start questioning him, remove his backpack, stand up and pat him down. A reasonable person would know they're not free to leave because what are they gonna do? Push these cops aside, run past them? He's already been given orders and having. And being searched, basically. Not searched, frisked by the cops.
Troy Henricksen [:No reasonable person is like, yeah, I can get up and leave from this situation.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah, but I've read the government's response, and they say, well, the police said that. Actually, I don't know if the government response says this, but the police said on video, don't worry, you're free to leave.
Troy Henricksen [:I understand that, but like, I'm trying to think of an example here. Like, a reasonable person. Yeah, you can hear that. But like, you're not just going to leave when a group of cops just come up on you. Even if they say, yeah, you're free to go, like, what are you going to do? Just walk past them? I understand what they say, that they're not going to allow that to happen.
Steve Palmer [:That's exactly. So when I get police officers on the witness stand that give me this nonsense, and it is nonsense, because he was not free to leave. He wasn't free to leave by any measure.
Steve Palmer [:There is no way on planet earth that if Mangione got up, went to the trash and dutifully deposited his trash in the McDonald's receptacle and tried to walk out, that these police were going to let that happen. They were not going to let that happen? He had been on that dirty, greasy floor before he could take two steps. They were clearly not going to let him leave. And my first question to cops when I get them on the stand and they give me an answer like that is, are you telling me that if Mangione got up, tried to walk out, you were going to let him walk out, get in his car and drive off and, you know, you could say, why ask that question? You know, I mean, look, there's no answer. They're going to give you that other than, no, we weren't going to let that happen. Of course he was not free to leave. Now the government's going to turn around and say, well, that doesn't matter. The question is, what did Mangione think? Well, what do you think he thought?
Troy Henricksen [:If you're saying he's the man, who he is, he thought his world was pretty much over right there, that he was already under arrest.
Steve Palmer [:What did a reasonable person think? A reasonable person would clearly think, you're not free to leave. The cops are telling you to put your hands above your head, you're getting frisked, you're sort of cornered by police. And the other thing I point out at hearings is, all right, let's talk about what you were wearing. You had a badge, you had a uniform, you had your hat, you had a gun, you had your mace, you had a little utility belt. And you were in charge of that situation, were you not, officer? In other words, you were the one giving orders, not Mangione. He was the one that had to follow your orders because it was a police dominated environment. And if they say no to that, I mean, you would you just say, well, what about it isn't under your control at that point? And clearly anybody in Mangione's situation would feel like they're not free to leave.
Troy Henricksen [:I would, yes, I totally agree.
Steve Palmer [:So here I agree with the defense, okay. That he was not that Mangione was in custody, I think for purposes of Miranda. Now, what's phase two? So you got that one. Now phase two, you need, you need.
Troy Henricksen [:It's an interrogation.
Steve Palmer [:An interrogation, yeah. Now again, that's not an interrogation. Are questions by law enforcement designed to elicit an incriminating response. So questions about the case, and clearly he's being interrogated. Who are you and what's going on? Now you can maybe argue that's not designed. It certainly is because they think it's Mangione. And his statement there in response is going to be either a, I'm the guy you're looking for. Or B, I'm gonna lie about my identity.
Steve Palmer [:Whatever it is, it's designed. That question is designed to incriminate the person that they're interrogating. And any questions after that. What are you doing here? Were you in New York? I mean, these are clearly incriminated question designed to get helpful information so the police can build their case. Okay, so we've got two components of Miranda. So our court right here, lawyer talk court, says the police should have read.
Troy Henricksen [:Him as Miranda rights.
Steve Palmer [:Read him as Miranda rights.
Troy Henricksen [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:Before engaging in any of this. Now, there's some gray area here. I'm not the end all be all on this. And granted, I come at this with 30 years as a criminal defense lawyer. There may be a little bit, but.
Troy Henricksen [:It'S also not Luigi's lawyer's argument to make here. The state has the burden here to prove. Correct.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah, good point. Once the defense filed a motion to suppress, the burden of proof shifts over to the government to prove that there was not a constitutional violation. So if you allege at least a showing at the outset, don't have to prove it, but just some early showing, some preliminary facts that show there's a custodial interrogation. Now the burden shifts over to the government to establish that it wasn't. Now, what are they going to say? Well, they're going to say, look, this was a consensual encounter. You've got a guy in public. The police are simply asking his identity. They had reasonable suspicion to do that.
Steve Palmer [:Meaning there was an informant's tip. And the police themselves would say, yeah, he looked like the guy on tape to me. That's enough to at least go question him, I think. Yeah, that's. It's a Terry stop. Something less than full custody, but more than free to leave. Maybe a detention. Yeah, yeah, whatever the heck that means.
Steve Palmer [:If you know, please leave it in the comments. Because after 30 years, I still don't know. Are you detained? Are you in custody? What's the difference? Yeah, you figured out. But that's what the prosecutor's gonna argue. It's just a Terry stop that doesn't require Miranda warnings. I believe that when the police started to do more like put your hands above your head, get totally frisked, sit back down, more cops show up, it starts to convert, I think, to a custodial interrogation, Although the court may see it differently. Yeah, but our court says. Or maybe I'll say it.
Steve Palmer [:Maybe I'll put it this way. Maybe I'll retreat a little bit and just say Read the guy's rights.
Troy Henricksen [:Whenever they said, I'm 100% certain that's this guy, why would you not turn and be like, we gotta give him his rights right now?
Steve Palmer [:Yeah.
Troy Henricksen [:I just don't understand. If you were so certain it was him, why didn't you just think, we have to do this? This is the biggest case in the country right now. We should probably follow this to the T. Like what? Yeah, that's what I would think if I was.
Steve Palmer [:That's what you would think.
Troy Henricksen [:I mean, obviously, I'm not a cop. I'm not on the street. I'm not dealing with the stressors of every situation. I get it.
Steve Palmer [:Police work's not EAS easy.
Troy Henricksen [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:Nobody said it was easy. And nobody said that they're not doing yeoman's work. They are. Doesn't mean they don't have to do it. Right.
Troy Henricksen [:It's not like they didn't get a briefing. Like a small police station in Pennsylvania didn't get a briefing on Luigi. They were like, what are the odds that he ends up in our town? Right? And it was like, oh, my gosh, he's here.
Steve Palmer [:Nobody really thought they hadn't prepared for this encounter.
Troy Henricksen [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:All right, let's just say that we're correct. Let's say the judge says, you know what? I think you're right. You guys have proved, or I believe that the evidence proves that there's a Miranda violation. This was a custodial interrogation, should have provided Miranda warnings before asking any questions. Therefore, any responses out of mangione are thrown out of court. The government is not allowed to use his statements against him. At least the statements in response to the interrogation against him.
Troy Henricksen [:So part of those.
Steve Palmer [:It doesn't win the case.
Troy Henricksen [:No, no, it doesn't. But it's like a little less meat on. But he has a statement, given his fake identity and all that. But also he hands over his fake id, you think that's suppressible also?
Steve Palmer [:We would argue. Yes, we would argue it's fruit of a poisonous tree. So, meaning, all right, you've poisoned the whole tree by this Miranda violation. So any response, whether it's a verbal act or whether it's an actual statement is going to be suppressible.
Steve Palmer [:Now, I get this question all the time upstairs. They didn't read me my Miranda warnings. I think the case should be dismissed. It's not really a question, but people tell me this. It's not how it works. First you have to go through the analysis we just went through. You have to say, was the person in custody, Was there a custodial interrogation? And if so, what. What did the defendant or the suspect rather say in response to the questioning? And the remedy then is.
Steve Palmer [:The government can't use those statements. Sometimes in a rare case, I'm going to say it's rare, that may result in the case getting dismissed because the only evidence the police have is a guy's confession or something along, or it weakens the case so much that the prosecutor can't make it. There's another rule about relying only on a defendant's statement, but for our purposes, it rarely results in a dismissal of the case. But what it often results in is a suppression where the government can't use the responses. Now here, I don't think the responses are particularly. I don't want to say they're not important, but they're not critical.
Troy Henricksen [:No, not at all.
Steve Palmer [:In other words, the question would be, if you're the government and the court says can't use those statements, can you still make your case? Well, yeah. Yeah, because what are they going to do? They're going to say, all right, folks, here's the video of the shooting, and here's this guy. They look like the same guy.
Troy Henricksen [:I think the video they're shooting, you can't see, you can't tell who it is. I think the best video is what they. I think if they tie the videos, it has him in a, like, hotel kind of deal. That's where you actually get to see him for the first time. I think that's it. But if you do, like, if it's just those two videos, like, there's no way.
Steve Palmer [:Okay, so can they prove that it's Mangioni without his statements? Absolutely, probably. All right, so we've resolved the Miranda question. And by the way, when people tell me that upstairs in my law practice, I say, look, first of all, there may not have been any custodial interrogation at the time. A lot of times the police don't ask any questions. They just say, turn around, you're going to get cuffed, take you down, put you in jail, hold you, charge you, arraign you. The next day you're out on bond. And the guys will say, look, they didn't read my Miranda rights. I'm going to say, yeah, it doesn't matter because they didn't question you.
Steve Palmer [:Or if they did question you, you didn't make any incriminating responses. Or if you did make any incriminating responses, they're not that big a deal. Yeah, there's one exception. If the police. If the government, or if the court rather, throws out the responses, the government can still use a suspect's statements in certain situations. So say, Troy, you're the defendant. Your Miranda rights were violated, and. And the government can't use your statements against you in their case.
Steve Palmer [:Their case in chief, meaning the government can't say. All right, Detective Jones, tell us what Troy had to say that day. Can't do that. But let's say Troy's a crafty little guy, and he decides.
Troy Henricksen [:I go to marshals a lot.
Steve Palmer [:He goes to marshals. He decides that he's going to get up on the witness stand in his case, in the defense case, and tell a different tale. You say something completely different than what you told the police the day you were arrested.
Troy Henricksen [:When I was arrested, I told the cops I was from Arizona. Instead, Luigi's case. Like, imagine he gets there, says that I'm from Arizona. That's why I told the cops. And they could literally come in and be like, you told them you were from New Jersey.
Steve Palmer [:Yes. The police. Even though there's a Miranda violation, it doesn't give the defendant license to. To get up on the stand and tell a different story with impunity. I'm not saying lie with impunity because you don't know which one's true. But the defendant can't get up and tell a different tale and then expect the government to be stuck with only that version. So the police would say, well, look, when you first encountered the cops, you told them something different. So that's not entering.
Steve Palmer [:And the purpose of that is to impeach you, to show that you're not. You're telling two different versions. It impacts your credibility. All right, so our court, at least, has concluded there may be a Miranda violation. The issue, I think, is going to be one of whether there was custody. I think there was an interrogation custodial. That's a little bit more great. But we think so.
Steve Palmer [:But there's more. But wait, there's more. Now, the next question in the motion is whether the police search of Mangione's backpack, which revealed a manifesto, a gun. I mean, this is, like, real evidence. This is. Yeah.
Troy Henricksen [:This is really, really important stuff.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. Whether that violated the Fourth Amendment.
Troy Henricksen [:Mm.
Troy Henricksen [:If I'm on the defense, I'm arguing that the backpack was removed. And this is what they do, basically argue. And there was no reason to search it without a warrant. There's. There was no exigent circumstances.
Steve Palmer [:Exigent.
Troy Henricksen [:Exigent circumstances. Which. Exigent circumstances, like the big ones are destroying evidence or officer safety. Those are like the big. I think there's a couple more, but those are like the big two. And the argument is, well, the backpack's removed. Luigi's in handcuffs. Like they're not in danger from this backpack anymore.
Troy Henricksen [:It's not like he can destroy evidence in the backpack because he's in handcuffs.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah, go get a warrant.
Troy Henricksen [:Yeah, go get a warrant. Because the backpack's not going anywhere. And that's the defense's argument. And I think the state makes some good arguments on the other side also.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. So look, the Fourth Amendment is pretty clear. No searches without a warrant. And then the US Supreme Court, of course, has weighed in on this over the years, and they say no searches without a warrant unless the search qualifies under the carefully crafted and well delineated exceptions to the warrant requirement.
Steve Palmer [:One of which is. And by the way, this is a closed container. This is something where it's not obvious on its face, what's in it.
Troy Henricksen [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:Something that if the police just are going to go seize that from you, typically you would say you have to have a search warrant to gain access there and search it. And a search warrant would be. To get a search warrant, the police would have to go talk to a judge, a neutral magistrate, present facts under oath, either in the form of an affidavit or testimony to establish probable cause. And why, in other words, why the police believe there's evidence of contraband or some other legal activity contained in the backpack.
Troy Henricksen [:Yep.
Steve Palmer [:Police don't do that. Instead, they just decide they're going to open up the backpack on their own and gain access to the contents where they find incriminating evidence, lo and behold.
Troy Henricksen [:Yep.
Steve Palmer [:All right, the government's going to be arguing, look, this was a search incident to an arrest. It's one of the carefully crafted and well delineated exceptions to the warrant requirement. There's an old case called chimel, I think, which is like, we would call this a wingspan search or whatever, but. All right, like you said, it has to be one. Whatever is getting searched here should be within the grasp or the wingspan of the suspect. Now, the prosecutor's gonna say, or the government's gonna say, well, look, it was. It was his backpack. He was there.
Steve Palmer [:The backpack was there. It was there. We'll get to defense here in a second.
Troy Henricksen [:Yep.
Steve Palmer [:And secondly, there's got to be some exigent circumstances, something that. Something that tells the police, look, it's not good enough to wait. We really need to get in here for some reason other than we want to see what's in there right now.
Steve Palmer [:And we read the defense motion here and they actually.
Steve Palmer [:You know, they pointed out all sorts of facts about this is like, look.
Steve Palmer [:Mangione was in cuffs by the time I think they searched. The police searched the backpack.
Troy Henricksen [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:Meaning he couldn't get to it. So the defense is going to be saying what? Look, you can't, you can't tell me that it was in the wing or that it was in his grasp or his wingspan or he could have gotten to it. He was in cuffs. It was a completely police dominated environment by then. He had no access at all to this backpack. You needed to get a warrant.
Steve Palmer [:The other thing the government's going to argue is there are exigent circumstances. We really, you know, things were dangerous. I mean, what make the argument.
Troy Henricksen [:I mean the argument on the state side would be, I mean, we just saw him with a weapon, kill somebody. So the weapon could be in there, it could be dangerous. It's just.
Troy Henricksen [:I don't like the exigent circumstances argument on this like backpack at all. I just don't think it's the right one. I think the search incident arrest is better, but then also the inevitable discovery is just the way better one.
Steve Palmer [:You've just thrown a bunch of stuff out here.
Troy Henricksen [:I know, I know.
Steve Palmer [:The government's going to be arguing first. He was still in the wingspan because even though he was in police custody, even though he's in cus. In theory, I guess he could have gotten free somehow and gotten to it. It's nonsense. There's a bunch of case law in this, by the way, in auto stops. I think New York vs. Belton is one of them. Chimel might even been.
Steve Palmer [:No, Chimmel was not. Chimel was a search of a house. But anyway, it's like there's case law where suspects are in the dirt in cuffs behind their car and the police are still allowed to search the interior compartment of the car. It's different because the automobile exception is its own little beast. It's its own little thing. The idea is we don't have as much expectation of privacy in our cars.
Steve Palmer [:Here. It's still a closed container. It's still. There's no car. There's no. I mean he's still got a reasonable expectation of privacy in it. But nonetheless the police are going to say, the prosecutor's going to say, look, he still could have had access to this somehow, some way. And not only that, there were exigent circumstances because we didn't know what was in there? There was officer safety.
Steve Palmer [:Look, folks, look, court, this is an act of terror. We even indicted it or even charged him with an act of terror. Terrorists have bombs. Terrorists have pipe bombs. They have other. Like, we had no idea. There's no way we could safely take that backpack into custody, hold it and maintain it to get a warrant. What if the thing blew up on us? What if I just don't like the.
Troy Henricksen [:Bomb argument because there was no evidence of bombing and I understand that.
Steve Palmer [:I'm with you.
Troy Henricksen [:The defense is gonna say, like, there was no. Like you're getting this. You're pulling the bomb idea just out of your butts at the end of the day. Like, that doesn't make any sense. Like, at this time, the suppression hearing, the terrorism charges have been dropped. I get the word terrorism was thrown around on the news and all that, but I feel like most people are like, overused the word terrorism for anything.
Steve Palmer [:Perhaps. But what you have, if you're arguing the government side, is somebody who is willing, in cold blood.
Steve Palmer [:In public, pull out a gun and commit the most heinous act of violence we know, shoot somebody dead.
Steve Palmer [:You don't think that this guy's also capable to hide a bomb in a backpack?
Troy Henricksen [:Are we going to say every cold blood killer is going to have a bomb in his backpack? Now, every gang banger on the street now is suspect of having a bomb.
Steve Palmer [:And the defense makes that point. They cite a bunch of case law from New York where guys are getting arrested and there's briefcases on top of a car, and the police gain access as incident to an arrest and that evidence is suppressed. I think that's a better argument for the defense. I agree. Is that there, perhaps there wasn't exigent circumstances or a really good reason for the police to gain access to that backpack. There is something, however you brought it up, called inevitable discovery.
Steve Palmer [:Let's play it out.
Steve Palmer [:Assuming Mangione's arrest is lawful, in other words, the police had probable cause to arrest Mangione for the crime. Now, what would probable cause be? Well, it could be as simple as a patrolman says, look, I saw the videos. I saw Mangione. To me, it's the same guy. I think that's probable cause. Now, do I agree with that? Do I not? I don't know, but that's gonna be the argument.
Troy Henricksen [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:Mangione's waffling statements, to the extent they're allowed to use those, if there's not a Miranda problem, may contribute to some probable cause. But Assuming there's probable cause to arrest, then the police have every right to maintain and inventory that backpack. This is another carefully crafted and well delineated or narrowly crafted and well delineated exception to the search warrant requirements, called an inventory search. I arrest you, Troy, and you've got your book bag on you. At the time of your arrest, the police or the government is allowed to look into the contents, create an inventory of everything there and store it.
Steve Palmer [:Now, there's some problems with this, is that an inventory search has to be conducted in accordance to a written policy. There's got to be some policy about inventory searches. But I think the government here is going to say, look, no matter what happened here, this was going to get inventoried and we were going to gain access. We're going to get all this information. Yeah. Because once you're allowed to do an inventory search, you're not required, or the government, rather, is not required to ignore inculpating evidence or damaging evidence just because they found an inventory.
Troy Henricksen [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:So that. That it wouldn't surprise me to see some of that coming out.
Troy Henricksen [:That's why I feel like. Is the best route. Like, I just feel like that's the safest, non, like, appealable route after this. Because this motion, most of these trials, they go through the appellate ladder forever. And to get this motion correct the most safest way. So there's no issue on appeal for suppression. I think would be that just inevitable discovery, I think if a judge grants it on exigent circumstances. Now we have this murky decision that on a suppression hearing that, okay, now we have a suppression issue for the trial.
Troy Henricksen [:And I just.
Steve Palmer [:I think, just so we're clear, inevitable discovery means the court is acknowledging there may be a Fourth Amendment violation, but the police were gonna find it anyway.
Troy Henricksen [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:And here's how. Now, look, there's some exceptions to this, and that's not a clean, clear path to victory for the government either. But at least if I'm writing the decision for the court and I'm trying to admit the evidence, I would give lip service to all the arguments. I would say, look, I find that there is sufficient exigent circumstances to justify the police searching that backpack right there. And even if there aren't.
Steve Palmer [:It would have been inevitable that the police would have discovered the contents, because I find that the arrest was valid and based on probable cause, and the police would have inventoried the contents anyway and gotten access to it. I'd have to do a deeper dive into it, but I would make some argument like that. If I were the court, just to cover all the bases, but I mean, this. This motion has some teeth in the big picture, because the other side is, look, I mean, I agree with the defense here. The court could say, I don't think they should have searched that backpack right there. And if the court says, look.
Steve Palmer [:The police probable cause is premised upon poisonous information obtained as a result of all this unlawful behavior, you might get the arrest itself thrown out and the discovery of the backpack contents as a result of a bad arrest. You know, you could lose some of this evidence. The government could lose some of this evidence. Let's talk about where that leaves the case. I haven't looked at all the videos. You've seen the videos?
Troy Henricksen [:I've seen majority of them, yeah.
Steve Palmer [:It's still. The police don't need the contents of the manifesto necessarily to prove Mangioni committed the crime. If they can prove his identity with other information. Yeah, but if they can't, could be a problem. Because, look, if the video is murky and it's not obvious who it is.
Steve Palmer [:And the government says, yeah, it's not obvious who it is, but here's his manifesto talking about all the reasons he killed this guy. Well, like, what are the odds, if you're sitting on a jury, that you've got a guy that looks an awful lot like the blurry video you have, and he's got a manifesto and he was lying to the cops about who he is, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's an easier case.
Troy Henricksen [:Yeah, absolutely.
Steve Palmer [:All right, so finally, let's talk about what's going on as we speak. It's a suppression hearing. This is a. Basically a court hearing. The judge has convened all the people into court, the government is calling witnesses, and. And the defense gets to cross examine or ask the witnesses questions. The defense has no burden here. The government has the burden.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. A defense can call witnesses if it wants to, but the defense is questioning the police, questioning government witnesses about these. These acts and these searches. And at the end of the hearing, the judge is going to make a decision and say, either yay, the evidence is admissible in part or in whole or no, it's not, and we're going to suppress it.
Troy Henricksen [:And this is also going on. Luigi's a little confusing. This is going on in the New York state case. This is not going on in the federal. It's not going on the Pennsylvania case.
Steve Palmer [:So Luigi's got three. Like, he's got a war on three.
Troy Henricksen [:Fronts called a hat trick in my industry.
Steve Palmer [:He's got a hat trick. He's got a criminal defense hat trick. The feds are prosecuting. The state's prosecuting in Pennsylvania. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Yes, but this is the New York case, so.
Troy Henricksen [:Yep.
Steve Palmer [:Look, you can check it all out. You can read the pleadings, et cetera. Just go Googled online if this is helpful and you want more of this, if you've got questions specifically about Mangione or other active cases, leave them in the comments. Go to lawyertalkpodcast. Com. Shoot me a question there. I'll be happy to address it. Break it down.
Steve Palmer [:Coming at you week in and week out. Lawyer talk off the record, on the air.
