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Luigi Mangione is obviously guilty of murdering Brian Thompson, so, as his lawyers search for a defense, insanity is sure to come to mind. Insanity defenses rarely succeed, perhaps because anyone who commits a murder for which he is almost certain to be caught and punished is, in the popular sense of the word, “crazy.” The legal definition of insanity is necessarily much higher.

There may be another problem with a potential insanity defense in Mangione’s case: much of the country doesn’t think his murder was crazy at all. Scott has already noted that nearly two-thirds of the students at Penn, Mangione’s alma mater, can’t bring themselves to condemn his crime. Hardly insane, then.

Many other instances of pro-murder sentiment (at least in the case of an insurance company executive) can be cited. Jon Stewart’s Daily Show audience booed a reference to Mangione’s capture, for example. Far more significantly, Senator Elizabeth Warren found his murder to be entirely understandable:

And look, we’ll say it over and over, violence is never the answer, this guy gets a trial, who’s allegedly killed the CEO of UnitedHealth[care]. But you can only push people so far, and then, they start to take matters into their own hands.

On MSNBC, there was no follow-up. But a normal person might want to ask Warren, how exactly was the extraordinarily privileged Luigi Mangione “pushed”? And what pushed him “too far”? I suppose Warren’s reply would be that Luigi himself may not have been “pushed,” but he was acting in political solidarity with others who have been. Entirely understandable, if not commendable, in other words.

So we have gotten to the point, in the history of liberal rationalization of violence, where it may well have undermined this criminal defendant’s best potential defense. On the other hand, it could give rise to jury nullification, if those who sympathize with murder in politically useful instances wind up on the jury.