MN Shooter "Difficult Case to Defend"

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jeremy Rosenthal back with us for a few minutes this morning.
I was a prosecutor before he became a defense attorney,
and let's just say he knows his way around the courtroom,
and with this shooter up in Minnesota, I wanted to
get some wisdom. Jeremy, good morning. Good to have you on.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Good morning, Gary, How are you well?

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Thank you. This seems to the layman, you know, you
look at these murders and the attempted murder is like
an open and shut case. But still he's due a defense.
What would you do? What would you expect the defense
to be in a case like this.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
It's a pretty difficult case to defend. Anytime a case
comes in, you're looking at it from a couple standpoints. First,
you always ask yourself, can we win? Can we walk
this guy out of the courtroom? And if we can't win,
what can we do for him? What can we do
to help him? Can we get a list for sentence
in a case like this? It wasn't me, Probably doesn't

(00:56):
work here. I think they've got this guy pretty pretty well,
caught very very terrifying murders. I don't know if you've
seen they've had some ring cam from some of the
doors that he was in. He's wearing like one of
those James Bond villain masks and a lot of preparation.

(01:16):
So when you don't have that, when you don't have
that as a defense, you sort of have to sort
of start looking around. I hate saying the word creative,
but you kind of have to get creative with it.
You can sort of look at mental health issues to
see if there are some overarching mental health that to
get it. Not Guilty by reason of insanity is always

(01:39):
going to be a stretch with this type of premeditation,
because not guilty by reason of insanity basically says I
didn't know what I was doing was wrong. And when
there's so many steps, the police car, the lights, the uniforms,
the lists, when there's so much premeditation, really really hard
to get it there. You're always looking at and I

(02:02):
draw a lot of parallels in this case in my
mind with Luigi Mangioni, because there's just some common denominators there. Right,
you've got a very meticulous plan, you've got somebody who's
trying to incite potentially something bigger than just a single homicide.
And with MANGEONI he's attacking a lot of the police procedure.

(02:27):
You can always try to do that, but it's really hard,
and make no mistake about it. When you're a lawmaker
in any state, you've got the top tops in the
state on your speed dial, and you've got the FBI
who's come in very aggressively. They've got some really good
law enforcement who are in this. Trying to find mistakes

(02:50):
and errors that those guys make is going to be
a challenge.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah. Incidentally, you have any idea what it takes to
be charged with first degree murder in Minnesota, second degree murder,
This is the definition of premeditated murder.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
It feels like it's a typo, doesn't it, Because because yeah,
anytime you're looking at anytime you look at homicide. Just
to give everybody a little the criminal law one oh one,
anytime you're looking at homicide, you always track the intent.
It's the intent that tells you how severe the crime is.

(03:26):
Alec Baldwin didn't wake up in the morning decide to
kill somebody, we don't think, so that would be a
lower degree homicide had he been convicted. If you have
a passion killing, right, a love triangle of some sorts
that goes crazy and somebody gets shot. That's an intermediate one.
First degree is reserved for this degree of preparation. And

(03:50):
like you, when I read that it was second degree,
I kind of felt like it was a misprint, kind
of like you know one of the Tommy Frasier Cornhusker
games where it's like, what do you mean they what
do you mean they scored eighty four points? That's got
to be a misprint, right.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
That was Turner Gil, But I got your point.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yeah, right, right, Yeah. So I'm a Red Raider, so
I have a lot of pain in my past from
the corn Huskers. We inflicted a little bit too, So
it's okay.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Yeah. Does that matter, Jeremy that there are federal charges
now in addition to state charges, because this could be
a death penalty case now, right.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Exactly right, Gary, The state of Minnesota doesn't have death penalty,
but the Feds to, And like in Luigimi Gioni's case,
you would think that the death penalty is being kicked
around and discussed in order for them to indict for
the and seek the death penalty, that's got to be
a decision by law that's made by the attorney General

(04:48):
herself that she's got to be the one that makes
that call. I would think that that would happen here
based on everything that we're hearing. But yes, it makes
it much much more difficult when you're facing both state
and federal charges in something like this, for sure.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yeah, well he's going to be toasted regardless one way
or the other, and that's just it's incredible. Jeremy, thanks
for the insight. Appreciate your time.