Manhattan prosecutors say they had no role selecting reporters
Luigi Mangione, who is accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare executive Brian Thompson on a street in Manhattan, is scheduled to begin jury selection on 8 September in a case that The Guardian reported has drawn intense global interest. The killing set off an intense manhunt that ended with his arrest in a Pennsylvania fast-food restaurant.
The dispute over press access reached Judge Gregory Carro in a letter late last week, in which Mangione’s defense objected to what it called the “partial exclusion” of the public and press from the proceedings. The defense alleged that court administrators and prosecutors engaged in “hand-choosing the reporters permitted to attend the proceeding,” and said only six journalists will be permitted to cover jury selection, “in a dramatic break from customary practice.” These decisions were made, they claimed, without defense knowledge or participation.
The defense demanded the names of the six journalists who will cover jury selection and of 68 reporters on a reserved seating list, and asked for a hearing over which journalists were “granted general access” to the 8 September proceeding. Whatever “collusion and exclusion” might be happening, they argued, threatened Mangione’s sixth amendment right to an open trial.
Manhattan prosecutors told Carro in a 3 August letter that they had “no role in developing” the 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 the case, and asking whether any such discussion had occurred.
Laura Italiano, a freelance journalist covering the trial, said she was “as surprised as anyone” by the suggestion that prosecutors had even indirectly hand-picked reporters. “This is in no way true,” she said. Italiano said the limited courtroom space during jury selection, with nearly all seats filled by prospective jurors, is why the media runs a pool, in which a small rotating group of reporters covers the proceedings and shares notes with colleagues who cannot fit inside. “That is where the pool comes in,” she said. “We let the rest of the journalists know what’s going on.” She cited Donald Trump’s 2024 hush-money trial and Sean “Diddy” Combs’s 2001 nightclub shooting trial as prominent examples of the system. “It’s usually chosen by agreement of the veteran reporters who have covered that court. It’s never acrimonious,” she said.
Of the defense’s claim that a pool breaks from “customary practice” and excludes certain media, Italiano said: “No, that is absolutely false.” She also said the absence of an overflow courtroom sits at the center of the dispute. “There was universal shock when the state court system announced that the press plan was not to have an overflow room,” she said. “Every big trial where there is this kind of demand for coverage has had overflow courtrooms.” The defense has requested a video feed to an overflow courtroom.
Ron Kuby, a defense attorney whose practice focuses on civil rights, said the problem could be solved by having an overflow courtroom, “which is routinely done.” “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,” he said. “It’s not difficult. It is done, not uncommonly, in high-profile trials.”
Seth Zuckerman, founder of Zuckerman Legal Group and a former New York prosecutor, noted that New York state courts do not allow streaming of proceedings outside 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,” he said. In prior high-profile cases, he said, courts have set up overflow rooms for reporters for whom there is not enough room in the courtroom, “so that they could follow along in real time.”
Erik S Groothuis, a partner with Schlam Stone & Dolan, called the defense letters “a bit dramatic,” saying the team appeared to be working to create appellate issues. “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,” he said. Asked about the defense’s request for a list of reporters, he said, “I’ve never heard of that.”
Roy S Gutterman, director of the Newhouse School’s Tully Center for Free Speech at Syracuse University, called the dispute “some interesting posturing” and said an overflow room for media should not be a concern for either side. “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,” 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.”
Court administrators did not respond to requests for comment, and lawyers for Mangione, who maintains his innocence, declined to comment. Asked for comment, the Manhattan district attorney’s office referred to its letter rejecting any role in the court’s media access plan, and a spokesperson said prosecutors do not have a say in selecting reporters.
The case has unfolded against a media landscape in which news consumers expect minute-by-minute updates and in which social media influencers who obtained press credentials often flock to major US criminal cases, according to The Guardian. The Guardian also reported that the killing sparked an outpouring of public anger over the practices of America’s for-profit healthcare firms, and that Mangione has attracted a small but vocal group of supporters who view him almost as a political prisoner.