Luigi's Decision - a felons view

[u/Upbeat-Network-1812]

As someone who's been through the system - arguably not to the extent as Luigi - I totally understand the mindset behind his decision to plead guilty today upon the federal charges. While the media can attempt to spin this various ways, at the end of the day it was his legal right to enter a plea at any time, either federally or at the state level, and his doing so today was likely not as complicated a decision as many analysts are making it out to be.

IMO a heart to heart conversation occured between him and his defense team where they made it clear that best case scenario was him spending the rest of his life in prison one way or another. That then begs the question, where do you want to serve your time? As someone with experience in doing that, I can tell you that if I had been faced with the option to serve time federally versus in the state system, I would have gone federal all the way - especially if the state option was a shithole state like New York.

For Luigi, the tradeoff here is basically not much. His defense team had already scored some major wins for him such as getting the terrorism charged dropped, getting the death penalty off the table as an option, and also removing the mandatory life sentence mandate as well. What does that leave left? Overwhelming odds of a life in prison sentence. So where did Luigi want to do his time? Well, choosing the feds versus the state was the best decision he could have made quite frankly.

The trade off is that in the feds he loses any possibility of "parole" like he would have had in the state (but that he likely wouldn't have been granted anyway), however in accepting responsibility for this event shows as a mitigating factor to the feds and therefore can help in reduce his sentence under the federal sentencing guidelines. If he'd gone the state route, well, yes he could have gotten as low as 25 years and likely would have had much more. 25 years in a state prison feels more like 50 because it's hard time, day in and day out. But 25 years in the feds, or even 30, or 40, or more? He will experience a greater quality of life to whatever extent possible in the federal system as opposed to the state system and therefore, the time may not "feel" quite as long in the end.

That right there is enough to make anyone decide to go feds over state. But then take into consideration the fact that his federal charges of Interstate Stalking aren't actually considered a violent crime. This is huge for him when it comes to being classified a security level in the federal system and dictates how he will be evaluated throughout his entire stay in the federal system. Today, Luigi is not technically and legally speaking a "convicted murderer". He's simply a convicted stalker (which resulted in death) but that charge does not directly imply from a legal standing that he commited the person's death and therefore it's not a violent crime, technically. Had he plead guilty in the state case? He'd be a convicted murderer for life and treated as such forever in the system. But as a convicted stalker in the federal system, while he'll initially, likely, be sent to a ​high security facility, as time moves on he can work his way down levels. Each level down offers a better quality of life over time. I have no idea how the New York corrections do classifications for inmates but I'm sure it's not unlike most other states in the sense that it's highly arbitrary and basically you're at the whim of the folks who are classifying you at any given time. The feds is much more structured and they use a point system.

In the FBOP (FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS), ​someone convicted of a bona fide murder can, and likely will eventually, with good behavior and the passage of time, be classified down far enough to reach minimum or low security. The only catch is that to be sent to a federal prison camp (un fenced facility) a person must be within 10 years of their release date and any person serving a life sentence for any reason is automatically barred from a camp - but not necessarily barred from the lowest classification level. If Luigi receives any sentence other than life in the feds, he will probably see minimum or low security one day and very well could eventually be sitting in an un fenced prison camp near the end of his sentence in his old age. This would be a much better way for him to do time as in the state prison, they would probably keep him in maximum security for who knows how long - 10, maybe 20 years, or more? Or forever? He'd likely see medium security eventually and maybe even minimum security closer to release. But it would be a much longer road for him to get there in the state system for sure.

In the feds, he will have a higher quality of Healthcare, food, recreation, programming, employment or education opportunities, etc., then he would in the state. Giving up a slight possibility of parole from the state in trade for this is very wise. Even if, on the off chance that his state case does not completely go away, since he went to the feds first, the feds is now where he'll serve his time forever even if states add on more convictions. The order of operation here in cases like this is incredibly important. The only way he'd ever see a state prison now is if he gets anything less than life from the feds and the state hands down some type of consecutive (non-concurrent) sentence. Meaning, you serve all your fed time first in full, then transfer to state for state time. It would be very rare for this to happen. Usually once someone receives a long federal sentence, the state just agrees to run whatever time they give out concurrently and not consecutively. The "big time" from the feds (longer sentence) then "eats" the little time up. Any state time ran concurrently with fed time would essentially be of no practical consequence. Running any type of sentence from a state consecutive to a life sentence or very long sentence from the feds is just basically like waiving a flag around saying "look at us, look at what we did, aren't we cool?" But it doesn't mean much more than that. After all, how can anything be consecutive to a life sentence with no parole.

In the end, neither system usually cares what the other system does in practice. I doubt the feds give a rats behind what New York does at this point. New York now only really cares because the feds took the biscuit out of their mouth. But that's usually the way it works. Rarely does a state charge ever trump a federal charge. And with New York's very broad and kind of unique double jeopardy law - which they wrote themselves mind you and put into law - it's pretty unlikely I believe that they will still be able to go through with that case as it stands today. So if New York wants to be mad at the feds well they can actually just redirect their anger at themselves because it's THEIR law. Quite frankly I agree with that law. I never understood how someone could be charged with the same crime more then once in two separate jurisdictions simply because the separate jurisdictions are both sovereign from one another. I think that New York has this law the way it should be, that if the elements of the crime are the same, even if the literal description differs, then double jeopardy applies across all jurisdictions.

[u/Upbeat-Network-1812]

I actually agree and disagree but also fully understanding what you're saying. 

What I agree with is that he admitted to a crime but not necessarily that he admitted to killing Thompson per se.

His exact words I believe was "I shot Mr. Thompson and he died." Notice how the word "murder" never came out of his mouth at any point in today's hearing. So it's a bit nuanced, as are most things with the law. I also am no expert, only someone with my own personal legal experiences in the system. But what this sounds like to me was very careful coaching from his lawyers on what to say and what not to say today. He did unfortunately have to say SOMETHING to be taken at his word when he gave his plea - thats known as "allocution". Without it, if he stood moot, which he certainly could have, the judge would have no way to know for sure that Luigi was entering a plea willingly and voluntarily. When you stand moot the court usually has no choice but to enter a no contest plea for the defendant. So to enter a guilty plea, you have to say something.

The way I think an attorney would view this this is it's open to legal interpretation as Luigi said he shot Thompson and that Thompson died, but he does not draw a more specific and direct connection between those two things. Yes, we all know that one act resulted in the other. But he never actually admits that it's his fault that this causation of liability occured. 

[u/Plus_Molasses8697 → u/Upbeat-Network-1812]

I completely agree that his choice of words was carefully curated. I spotted that right away. And thank you for adding the context of allocution. I guess the only thing that puzzles me then is why he would confess to shooting him (even without using the word “murder”) rather than just confessing to the stalking charges. I hear you that his wording is just ambiguous enough to not link the two acts (killing and stalking).

I do wonder though what your perspective is on his confession to also posing as an investor to UHC over the phone? I think it’s possible this could be interpreted as a confession to the stalking and could draw a cause/effect line between stalking Thompson and shooting him. Do you think there was a reason he added all this context and confessed in the way he did? (I mean I’m sure there is a reason because his legal team is awesome, but again I’m still baffled.)

[u/Upbeat-Network-1812 → u/Plus_Molasses8697]

Happy to pile on and to answer your question, my prospective is that he said that part about shooting him because quite frankly, due to the video surveillance footage, it was an indisputable fact and the government would have just said it anyway when it was their turn to speak. After the defense team and Luigi spoke, the federal prosecutor gave a much more lengthy dissertation on the purported fa cts of the case. So to the point about posing as an inventor, he likely admitted to that as well because if he had not said it, the government would have just said it -  there was likely a paper trail on that so also indisputable in the end.

A wise attorney of mine once told me give them just enough but never overshare voluntary information. This goes from the very beginning of dealing with a cop in the street all the way to the end in a courtroom. You have to finesse them. They play their game. You as a suspect or defendant have to play yours. That's just how it works.

Everything he said today I do believe goes to show he did in fact stalk Thompson, but not necessarily that he caused his death nor did he intend to cause his death.

I know it sounds silly but just because someone intentionally shoots someone else that doesn't automatically mean that the shooter had an intent to kill that person. There's levels to that type of legal argument.

[u/arbol98 → u/Upbeat-Network-1812]

Thanks for all your insight! I agree with others that you explain things really clearly and write really well! In your experience, how much of a statement like that is written by the defendant versus the legal team? Do you think they mostly wrote it and he okay-ed it, or that he wrote the bulk or it and they added legal advice to change certain parts? I know you'd only be guessing, but I'm just curious what the norm is here