"It feels like they're punishing Luigi Mangione because of our reaction [...] And that's totally unjust." - Opening Arguments Podcast

From Opening Arguments podcast episode "Luigi Mangione Being Charged as a Terrorist is Borderline Prosecutorial Misconduct", December 19th. The following excerpt starts at 16:00; emphasis is mine:

Host 1: When you charge somebody with murder for shooting someone, that is a clear statement that society is making, obviously. "We can't tolerate people shooting each other in the middle of the street."

But when you charge somebody as a murderous terrorist, you're making a very different statement. What you're saying is that, "That person did something in furtherance of a bad idea, and anybody who agrees with that person has bad ideas, and is dangerous."

[...]

The really bizarre thing about this to me is that it feels like they're punishing Luigi Mangione because of our reaction. It's a strange thing. And that's totally unjust. Y'know, the "Delay, Deny, Depose" thing on the bullets was really a message, and the shooting itself was a message in its own way. But terrorism---It's always a dangerous thing when the government gets to define who's a terrorist.

[...]

Host 2: And it's like, "isn't murder enough, man?" I'm sure--- I'm sure this guy, unless we get some really cool jurors [laughs] I don't see how he's not doing all kinds of time. What's the point? What bothers me so much about it, too: what's the risk here? What's the tally? One CEO? Hochul's having this whole meeting, "Hey, I know everyone's real scared out there, you're real scared, but rest assured, the CEOs, the vulnerable CEO species is safe here in its sanctuary." It's like, were they gonna leave? Were they gonna---like, what was gonna happen? It's just so unnecessary. It's over the top.

Host 1: It has a lot to do with who the prosecutors are actually working for, to be honest.

I would recommend listening to the whole episode (and their previous episode from Dec 13, where they discuss how jury nullification may not be likely).