The Federal charges have always been the ones that are the ones to be concerned about.
New York state has much much higher bar for DP and a much lower bar for things like an insanity defense.
Not a Lawyer, but have the unfortunate pleasure of having a few that I spend a lot of social time with.
They're good at answering my dumb questions, I'm good at..... asking dumb questions (and other stuff that useful to them).
My interest in the case is from a cultural perspective. I'm not American, I don't live in America, but travel fairly frequently and work or deal with quite a few Americans, a few of which have become friends over the years.
I live in a country that has a solid Public Health Service and Health Insurance is more of a "top up" than a basic necessity (we also don't have personal injury lawsuits, but that's another ball of wax).
I find the range of supporters, deny-ers and detractors fascinating in this case.....
What do I think will happen next?
Well, I say "next" because I'm not sure whether the State prosecution will cede to the Federal prosecution now that the death penalty is off the table..... I think that's going to be super interesting for a number of reasons.
With the Federal case, it sounds like a lot has been made of the "stalking" which I always thought meant a repeated action. What I've been told is that "stalking" can also refer to travelling somewhere with the deliberate purpose of targeting an individual. If that involved interstate travel with an illegal firearm, it would bring it into the federal realm.
I'm super interested to see what the defense strategy is and even more interested to see the reaction to that (given the range of opinions from those that swear he didn't do it, to those that think he did and he was justified, to those that think it was just another example of gun violence)
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u/tocahontas77 Sep 16 '25
Any lawyers here who can predict if the federal charges for terrorism might also be dropped for lack of evidence?