Summary
Trust in the U.S. judicial system has hit a record low, with only 35% of Americans expressing confidence, according to Gallup.
Criticism centers on the Supreme Court’s conservative majority, accused of advancing right-wing agendas, eroding rights like abortion access, and lacking accountability.
This judicial capture, orchestrated by conservative groups like the Federalist Society, ensures Republican dominance in key policies for decades, regardless of future elections.
That seems high
Listen, citizens united was really bad. And cops engage in highway robbery
Luigi Mangione has a higher favorability than the US justice system.
That’s where we’re fucking at.
Number of executives held accountable in 2024: 1
Do better in '25
What’s his favorability number? I would guess 50% at least.
It’s closer to 25% across the board. Younger folks (under 30) have closer to 40%, but the olds are not super stoked on him.
As I had to explain to my boomers “you worked for the state government long term, and 15 years at a single company, respectively, prior to retirement. You both got into good positions wrt: healthcare coverage. People these days are unable to secure promotion without job hopping, and are subject to rolling layoffs, putting them fully at the mercy of whatever low budget health insurance their new companies decide to use, but additionally, companies are swapping to cheaper plans for new/existing employees to save overall money, meaning what you were offered and what your newer peers were offered was probably not the same before you retired.”
They do not at all get it and they are not into my hype for it. Not a bit.
To say nothing of all our other problems, anyone should be able to grasp the idea that the US health insurance industry is inherently evil. They provide and create nothing. It’s a whole sector of the economy that exists solely to extract profit by amplifying human suffering and death. It should and must be abolished.
Blatant corruption, even in the highest court, will do that. Get Thomas out of there. Make Trump pay for his crimes. Otherwise, I guess it’s plumbing time.
It’s not just Thomas, it’s Kavanaugh. Men who behave like rabid dogs around women are not emotionally, mentally, and societally stable enough to hold that position. Or shouldn’t be considered as such, but here we are.
Replace them with republicans if you must, either way, treating half the population as less should disqualify you. But it doesn’t, the fact that Trump ran and won on it proves as much.
It’s difficult to avoid states of learned helplessness, I think, when this is our system. I think that’s another piece of the Luigi effect. Breaking that mentality on a large scale. (That’s not an endorsement, it’s a recognition of the psychological impact of that day.)
There’s at least 2 others worse than kavanaugh…
Dylan Roof kills 9 black people to start a race war. Luigi popped a CEO who was in charge or a system that killed thousands. Which one gets the terrorism charge and why? To send a message, so the serfs don’t get uppity. Why would we trust the system? We all know the resources exist, but we still suffer and starve. Fuck the system and fuck the elites.
Dylan didn’t have to be charged with terrorism to get the death penalty in SC. NY State law requires the terrorism charge to be able to sentence Luigi to the death penalty. It’s precisely because Luigi didn’t kill a bunch of people that they have to tack on the terrorism charge, but them being so bloodthirsty is very likely to backfire. They could have gotten the 2nd degree murder charge and life in prison, but it’s gonna be damn near impossible to find 12 people that will convict beyond a reasonable doubt on terrorism.
Sure it highlights how bloodthirsty these ghouls at the top are, but it may not work for them the way they want it to.
Dylan is currently on death row. Waste of taxpayer money if you ask me. Life in prison with no chance of parole is cheaper by multiple factors.
The terrorism charge also brings his motivation front and center. If it was a 2nd degree murder only, they might have been able to suppress a lot of discussion about UnitedHealth for being irrelevant and prejudicial. But now they not only have to discuss it, but they have to allow the defense to respond to it. If they aren’t careful, this could easily open the door to a jury nullification strategy.
Jury nullification isn’t an official path to be taken. Many judges will slam on the brakes the moment anyone, anyone at all, even hints at it.
Officially, juries are finders of fact. Did he do the actions needed for each charge? If so, then the verdict must be guilty. They are not finders of law; that’s for the judges or legislators.
That said, much like determining which degree of a murder charge, whether “he had it coming/he started it” could play a big part in evidence and testimony.
It’s not an official strategy, and the defense can’t do anything to overtly encourage it. But they are going to try to make the defendant sympathetic, and given the chance, they will try to get the jury thinking about just how unsympathetic the victim is.
It’s incredibly unlikely for sure. The lawyers and judge won’t ask anything about intent to nullify but they will ask if you have any prior knowledge or bias and pretty much anyone that intended to nullify would answer yes to those or face jail time for lying in court.
How could they find 12 people who do not have any knowledge or bias about the incident?
It’s not so much being unaware of anything. It’s about ensuring the juries are able to impartially evaluate the evidence presented. If one has a conflict of interest, or certain outside knowledge, they can’t be impartial. Simply having read the news stories probably won’t disqualify you. But if you’ve written similar statements as the accused, that would.
Since this is a high profile case, there are some interesting possible conflicts of interest. They might disqualify anyone that’s ever had United Healthcare insurance. Or anyone that’s had a claim denied, regardless of insurer. Or works in the medical field. Or had a family member with various medical conditions.
For all of the reasons that some people say it was justified, those are reasons a juror could be disqualified.
But these are all idle speculation at this point. It will be a long time (probably years) before they actually seat a jury.
Thank you for all the great info! If I could bother you with another question, what makes you think it will be years before they seat the jury, and how does this not violate his Sixth Amendment right to a “speedy and public trial”?
NY State law requires the terrorism charge to be able to sentence Luigi to the death penalty
Life imprisonment; NY State does not have the death penalty
Yeah I just watched a Legal Eagle video on it, apparently the death penalty is coming from the federal charges
Which is also one of the first times they’ve publicly used a stalking charge since they got the power to do so in 1998. Some serious double standards going on here.
They’ll find the 12 jurors they need. If they don’t I’m sure they’ll have at least 1 that will insist on guilty to make it a hung jury, then it’s unlimited do-overs
Why would I trust a branch of government who, amoung other things, said; president’s rule like kings; money is speech; rulings from the 1600s supercede any modern day interpretation of law.
I wouldn’t invite a person like this into my house non the less let them rule a branch of government.
The US justice system has gone out of its way to make itself not trustworthy. It’s surprising it’s that high.
Well 3 of 9 judges supported putting in codified ethics I believe. So that means I’d think 33% of them were trustworthy. Throw in 2% for the people who answered, yes I trust them… because they trust them to act in their own best interests, and we got to 35% haha
This guy cried about liking beer and he’s in charge of the law of the land.
I don’t know about that one, sounds like a fun story haha
Edit: what was it that happened?
The trump administration in 2016-2020 sped through his nomination.
It was one of the many shitshow experiences that Trump did in his first presidency and honestly, it’s shit like this that people forget of how fucking awful a Trump Presidency is.
https://www.vox.com/2018/10/3/17928698/brett-kavanaugh-blackout-drinking-alcohol
I didn’t. There are many things I’m dreading.
Like, how could you not be excited for the return of the administration that coined the term “alternative facts”
Ah, I didn’t recognize him. Never paid attention to the drinking or blacking out stuff. Thanks for the response though, guessing people thought my asking was insincere. Not really ready for 2025 yet, that’s for sure
But this poll is not about the percentage of the justice system that might be trustworthy. It’s about how many people thing the system is trustworthy, and if only 1/3 of the system is trying to make it trustworthy, then it demonstrably isn’t.
Agreed. I suppose I needed to indicate that I was being facetious somehow.
It was obvious to me.
Won’t trust it until Trump is in a cell.
There’s two justice systems. There’s two classes. Until this bullshit ends, it’s the same as it ever was.
35% is far too high.
I still meet people who trust a police officer to have their best interests in mind.
Are they white & wealthy?
Surprisingly not! Latinos and suburban folks making under 100k.
When you have judges accepting cash for kids 35% seems outrageously high.
And Biden pardoning said “kids for cash” folks when they are actually held to account.
Pardons this dude, but refuses to pardon people like Snowden who broke laws for the public good.
Did he refuse? Link to claim?
Is Snowden pardoned? No dumbass, so yes he refuses
Please show me where Biden has pardoned any whistleblowers that showed that the Federal goverment is violating constitutional rights. I’ll wait.
yo what the fuck, that is bullshit
From what I read Biden didn’t seek that judge to pardon, he was just one person affected by some big mass pardons. In this case I think he was one of like 1500 people who were moved to house arrest for non-violent crimes during Covid, who Biden pardoned all at once.
Still not great, the administration should’ve reviewed the details of those cases first, but it’s not like he deliberately sought the guy out.
The mass wave of pardons has really highlighted to me how broken the justice system is, but for complicated reasons. I can’t remember which case it was, but I read of one of the controversial pardons and felt outraged. Then someone, much like yourself, pointed out that this was due to the COVID house arrest stuff, and I conceded that it probably made sense. But then I felt conflicted, because if I didn’t want them to be back in prison, why did I still feel so angry?
The unfortunate answer is that prison doesn’t give us justice. I have been a victim of crimes that I haven’t reported because I have seen how traumatising that process is for victims. When the trial is over and the perpetrator is behind bars, the person most affected by the crime must then struggle to heal from both the trauma of the original incident, and the additional, separate trauma of interacting with the justice system. Seeing someone punished might soothe the sting a little, but it doesn’t help one to heal.
Reading about restorative justice approaches makes me feel hopeful, though it’s a radical enough approach that we haven’t had many chances to see it in action. Even if the cultural consciousness moved away from its retributive understanding of justice, widespread implementation of restorative approaches wouldn’t be a straightforward task. However, I feel that for a huge amount of cases, it would be better than we have now.
He tortured children for money. The trial was done. They should have sent him back to prison and never let him out.
Can’t help but agree with both of you ‘(I am large, I contain multitudes.)’
Didn’t some of those children commit suicide?
I get that non-violent crime has a specific meaning in law, but calling the selling of children, causing massive psychological damage non-violent really rubs me the wrong way. Not a criticism of you but of the system that conciders it non-violent just because it was done with the stroke of a pen instead of the wave of a gun.
How can we know this for sure though. Not trying to throw rocks at you, but to me that really sounds like speculation. at the end of the day he is accountable for his actions and I have seen way too many “woopsies” in the arc of his career. Past a certain point “I made a mistake” loses all credibility.
I mean, epistemologically we can’t know anything for sure. All we can do is try to come to reasonable conclusions with the information available to us.
The job of President is complicated. It is not remotely possible to go over every single detail of every single action. Every president makes whoopsies, I prefer to give benefit of the doubt between mistakes and malice. There are plenty of intentional things to criticize without sensationalizing this sort of thing
I mean, epistemologically we can’t know anything for sure.
True, and worth remembering. But when lucy keeps pulling ther football away from charlie brown, you tend to start blaming charlie brown for not seeing it coming.
Yeah, but Lucy has been letting us kick a pretty good portion of them. Dems are abysmal at marketing, but this administration has actually accomplished a decent amount of actual good policy. There are obvious exceptions and shortfalls, but it’s not like every single football has been pulled away.
Democrats just pardoned a judge selling kids to jails for cash. I understand he was old, but he should have died in jail from covid, those kids had their lives sold like slaves, we fought a war over people owning slaves for just cash - prison is a form of slavery, but theoretically it should only be used as punishment for guilty, so innocents going to prison is literally an unregulated slave trade. This isn’t a “Republican” issue. This is Democrats too. When was the last time you heard about a rich kid getting the same treatment as a poor kid? Or when was the last time you heard about any judge selling warrants to innocent peoples homes, lives, and existences, in order to have the police/feds go searching for illegal material they HOPE is maybe there. If you haven’t yet, you will. Pay real close attention to the ethics of judges over the next 5yrs, they are poised to anchor themselves as an unelected ruling class, not just stuffy bastards that don’t have touch with the real world, let alone can get their heads far enough out of their ass their nose might get cold. If AI is good for one thing, its replacing judges. End of story. Then, if AI is programmed with hundreds of years of precedent, and each law is coded in to be applied equally, then and only then can we hope the rich bastard drunk driving gets the same as Jo Bob. An that the courts aren’t just a playground for the 1% to pay a fee for their crime, while we face cold hard reality. You want us in prison? You rich fucks will be standing right next to us, wearing the same pink jumper, and we hungry. If all the feds can do is investigate you hoping harrasment will get you to commit a crime, they already lost, they just haven’t had their asses kicked on the side of the highway to prove it yet. Their 1% masters will be next.
Well, it’s kinda like they’ve given us every reason not to…
For the life of me I’m baffled that’s it’s as high as 35%
Did you see the popular vote?
Yeah I mean that was about 30% of the population, so it tracks
Middle class and dumb peasants.
Trust in law enforcement has been plummeting for a long time too. Prosecutors are going to have a much harder time convincing a jury of much of anything.
Hence the popularity (on the corporate side, at least) of binding arbitration.
The Supreme Court is corrupted, so every court in the country is corrupted
That sounds bad indeed.
Comparison: over here in Estonia, out of the general population, 71% trust the courts (an increase from 55% as measured back in 2013). Out of lawyers, 88% trust the courts here. A bit north of here, in Finland, 83% of the population “think that the courts are independent or very independent” (I failed to find a direct question about trust).
I mean y’all also generally dont need to worry so much since if the courts do fuck up, you dont have to worry about being tortured, raped, and murdered in your prisons.
Thanks for the perspective!
