WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.200 I want to start today by tapping into a very 00:00:03.200 --> 00:00:06.700 specific, very modern kind of fear. Okay. It's 00:00:06.700 --> 00:00:08.039 not just the fear of crime itself, though, and 00:00:08.039 --> 00:00:09.900 that obviously plays a big part, but the fear 00:00:09.900 --> 00:00:12.019 of the bureaucracy that comes after. Oh, yeah. 00:00:12.160 --> 00:00:16.289 The aftermath. Right. Imagine you are... You 00:00:16.289 --> 00:00:18.670 know, the model citizen. You check every single 00:00:18.670 --> 00:00:20.649 box. You get the permits. You file the paperwork. 00:00:20.789 --> 00:00:23.370 You study the regulations. You basically operate 00:00:23.370 --> 00:00:25.870 under the assumption that the system is this 00:00:25.870 --> 00:00:28.989 machine designed to protect the people who follow 00:00:28.989 --> 00:00:30.949 the rules. Because that's the social contract, 00:00:31.129 --> 00:00:33.969 right? We trade some of our absolute freedom 00:00:33.969 --> 00:00:36.450 for the protection of the state. We follow the 00:00:36.450 --> 00:00:39.250 law. And in return, the law has our back. Exactly. 00:00:39.250 --> 00:00:41.549 But what happens when that machine just completely 00:00:41.549 --> 00:00:44.009 malfunctions? And I don't mean a small glitch 00:00:44.009 --> 00:00:47.590 like a... parking ticket error. I mean, a catastrophic 00:00:47.590 --> 00:00:50.409 failure where the system actually tries to destroy 00:00:50.409 --> 00:00:52.829 you using a rule that doesn't even exist anymore. 00:00:52.969 --> 00:00:55.590 Yeah, it's terrifying. So today, for our deep 00:00:55.590 --> 00:00:57.850 dive, we are looking at a case from Lima, Peru, 00:00:58.049 --> 00:01:01.750 back in January 2012. It's the story of a young 00:01:01.750 --> 00:01:04.890 university student named Gaston Gabriel Mancilla 00:01:04.890 --> 00:01:07.640 Yupanqui. And this is a case that I've been really 00:01:07.640 --> 00:01:09.540 looking forward to unpacking because it's not 00:01:09.540 --> 00:01:12.659 just your standard true crime story. It's a legal 00:01:12.659 --> 00:01:15.819 horror story. It really is. It involves violent 00:01:15.819 --> 00:01:19.340 mugging, a fatal shooting, and a judge whose 00:01:19.340 --> 00:01:21.620 interpretation of the law was so baffled it actually 00:01:21.620 --> 00:01:24.519 triggered a national political crisis. Right. 00:01:24.560 --> 00:01:26.040 And for our sources today, we're going to be 00:01:26.040 --> 00:01:27.980 pulling from the actual investigation records 00:01:27.980 --> 00:01:31.140 surrounding this specific case, the court documents 00:01:31.140 --> 00:01:35.560 from the Third Penal The massive media storm 00:01:35.560 --> 00:01:37.700 that erupted at the time. We really need to talk 00:01:37.700 --> 00:01:40.040 about the concept of legal inertia here. Yeah, 00:01:40.099 --> 00:01:41.900 where the system just keeps moving in a direction 00:01:41.900 --> 00:01:44.500 even after the laws have totally changed. Exactly. 00:01:44.579 --> 00:01:47.340 And at the center of all of this is this bizarre 00:01:47.340 --> 00:01:50.260 concept of a zombie law. You know, a statute 00:01:50.260 --> 00:01:53.140 that was repealed, totally dead and buried, yet 00:01:53.140 --> 00:01:55.400 somehow crawled out of the grave to put a 20 00:01:55.400 --> 00:01:58.200 -year -old student in prison. It's wild. So let's 00:01:58.200 --> 00:02:00.180 set the scene on the ground first. It's January 00:02:00.180 --> 00:02:03.890 7th, 2012, a Saturday. We are in the historic 00:02:03.890 --> 00:02:06.709 center of Lima, specifically the intersection 00:02:06.709 --> 00:02:10.069 of Tacna Avenue and Colmena Avenue. And if you 00:02:10.069 --> 00:02:12.849 know Lima, you know this isn't some quiet suburban 00:02:12.849 --> 00:02:17.090 street. Tacna and Colmena is a major, major artery. 00:02:17.509 --> 00:02:20.370 It's chaotic. It's loud. There's a ton of traffic, 00:02:20.469 --> 00:02:22.990 lots of pedestrians. It's the kind of place where 00:02:22.990 --> 00:02:25.210 you really need to be aware of your surroundings. 00:02:25.610 --> 00:02:28.110 And Gaston Menci is there. He's 20 years old, 00:02:28.210 --> 00:02:31.330 a student at the Universidad Nacional Federico 00:02:31.330 --> 00:02:34.889 Villarreal. He's essentially just a kid with 00:02:34.889 --> 00:02:36.849 his whole future ahead of him navigating the 00:02:36.849 --> 00:02:39.310 city. But he's not alone for long. He's approached 00:02:39.310 --> 00:02:42.509 by two men. Right. The police reports identify 00:02:42.509 --> 00:02:46.110 them as Christian Arenas Perona and Victor Rios 00:02:46.110 --> 00:02:48.430 Acevedo. And I want to just pause on Acevedo 00:02:48.430 --> 00:02:50.710 for a second. OK. Because in the criminal underworld, 00:02:50.969 --> 00:02:54.250 he was known by the alias Nino Viejo. Nino Viejo, 00:02:54.389 --> 00:02:56.930 which translates to old boy. Yeah. It sounds 00:02:56.930 --> 00:02:58.830 almost literary, doesn't it? Like a character 00:02:58.830 --> 00:03:01.650 in a gritty novel. But in this context, an alias 00:03:01.650 --> 00:03:03.449 like that usually implies someone who has been 00:03:03.449 --> 00:03:05.210 in the life for a long time. Right. Someone who 00:03:05.210 --> 00:03:07.530 grew up in crime. Exactly. These guys weren't 00:03:07.530 --> 00:03:09.389 amateurs. They were armed with switchblades. 00:03:09.800 --> 00:03:11.580 So the dynamic is just immediately terrifying. 00:03:11.900 --> 00:03:14.060 You're a student. You're outnumbered two to one 00:03:14.060 --> 00:03:16.319 and they have knives out. They demand his backpack 00:03:16.319 --> 00:03:20.319 and his phone. Standard mugging procedure. Now, 00:03:20.360 --> 00:03:22.979 usually the advice is just to hand it over. Property 00:03:22.979 --> 00:03:25.680 can be replaced. Your life can't. That is the 00:03:25.680 --> 00:03:28.819 standard advice. Yeah. But there is a huge variable 00:03:28.819 --> 00:03:32.000 here that Acevedo and Perona didn't account for. 00:03:32.500 --> 00:03:35.460 Gaston Mancilla was armed. And this is crucial 00:03:35.460 --> 00:03:37.259 for you to keep in mind. He wasn't carrying a 00:03:37.259 --> 00:03:40.259 weapon illicitly. He held a fully valid license 00:03:40.259 --> 00:03:43.819 for a .38 caliber pistol. Which changes the profile 00:03:43.819 --> 00:03:46.120 of the victim completely. Right. We aren't talking 00:03:46.120 --> 00:03:48.000 about a vigilante out looking for trouble. We 00:03:48.000 --> 00:03:49.379 are talking about someone who went through all 00:03:49.379 --> 00:03:51.400 the bureaucratic hoops. The background checks, 00:03:51.599 --> 00:03:54.240 the psychological evils, the paperwork. All of 00:03:54.240 --> 00:03:57.080 it just to legally carry a tool for self -defense. 00:03:57.219 --> 00:03:59.460 Which brings us right back to that social contract. 00:03:59.780 --> 00:04:02.219 He did the prep work the state required. Right. 00:04:02.319 --> 00:04:04.960 So the muggers close in. A physical struggle 00:04:04.960 --> 00:04:07.400 breaks out. This isn't a standoff at 10 paces. 00:04:07.400 --> 00:04:10.379 It's a chaotic, close -quarters scuffle. Mancilla 00:04:10.379 --> 00:04:13.400 draws his .38 and fires. At point -blank range, 00:04:13.659 --> 00:04:17.360 the shot kills Acevedo Niño Viejo. The other 00:04:17.360 --> 00:04:20.279 attacker, Perona, he tries to flee the scene, 00:04:20.319 --> 00:04:22.779 but is caught by police shortly after. Now let's 00:04:22.779 --> 00:04:24.740 look at the immediate aftermath. You have a dead 00:04:24.740 --> 00:04:27.439 body on the pavement. You have a shooter. Police 00:04:27.439 --> 00:04:30.420 arrive. And Mancilla's lawyer later pointed out 00:04:30.420 --> 00:04:32.600 that they even had an eyewitness right there 00:04:32.600 --> 00:04:36.259 who corroborated Gaston's story completely. Wow. 00:04:36.360 --> 00:04:39.920 So no ambiguity. None. Two guys, knives, robbery, 00:04:40.180 --> 00:04:42.839 self -defense. So in a functioning legal system, 00:04:43.040 --> 00:04:45.459 what should happen here? In a clear -cut case 00:04:45.459 --> 00:04:47.839 of self -defense like this, typically the shooter 00:04:47.839 --> 00:04:50.480 is detained for questioning just to verify the 00:04:50.480 --> 00:04:52.360 permit and the facts. Make sure the story lines 00:04:52.360 --> 00:04:54.879 up. Right. Once it's established that he was 00:04:54.879 --> 00:04:57.180 the victim of an armed robbery and acted to save 00:04:57.180 --> 00:04:59.740 his life, he might be released pending the investigation. 00:05:00.819 --> 00:05:03.300 You don't usually lock the victim up with the 00:05:03.300 --> 00:05:05.279 general prison population unless there's a really 00:05:05.279 --> 00:05:07.519 strong suspicion he instigated the violence. 00:05:07.740 --> 00:05:09.560 But that is not what happened to Gaston. Not 00:05:09.560 --> 00:05:12.899 at all. The third penal court, which was presided 00:05:12.899 --> 00:05:16.490 over by Judge Asuncion Pumaleon, ordered his 00:05:16.490 --> 00:05:19.170 actual detention. They charged him with simple 00:05:19.170 --> 00:05:21.129 homicide, which is essentially second -degree 00:05:21.129 --> 00:05:23.689 murder, and threw him in jail. And this is where 00:05:23.689 --> 00:05:25.389 we have to get into the weeds of the legal reasoning. 00:05:25.670 --> 00:05:28.149 Because the judge didn't just say, I think he's 00:05:28.149 --> 00:05:30.949 dangerous. She cited a very specific violation. 00:05:31.350 --> 00:05:34.269 She claimed he violated the law of proportionality. 00:05:34.639 --> 00:05:37.939 This is the aha moment of the disaster. The judge 00:05:37.939 --> 00:05:40.139 argued that for self -defense to be legitimate, 00:05:40.399 --> 00:05:42.879 the means of defense must be strictly proportional 00:05:42.879 --> 00:05:45.480 to the means of attack. OK, let's play devil's 00:05:45.480 --> 00:05:48.040 advocate for a second. I can sort of see a logic 00:05:48.040 --> 00:05:50.259 where the state doesn't want someone using, say, 00:05:50.279 --> 00:05:52.519 a machine gun to stop a guy from punching them. 00:05:52.920 --> 00:05:54.660 Proportionality sounds somewhat reasonable on 00:05:54.660 --> 00:05:57.399 the surface. In theory, yes. You want to prevent 00:05:57.399 --> 00:06:00.459 excessive force. But Judge Pumalion's interpretation 00:06:00.459 --> 00:06:03.699 was incredibly literal. She effectively ruled 00:06:03.699 --> 00:06:06.019 that because the attackers had knives, bladed 00:06:06.019 --> 00:06:08.779 weapons, and Mancilla used a gun, a firearm, 00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:11.839 the response was legally disproportionate. That 00:06:11.839 --> 00:06:14.600 feels like video game logic. Like, oh, you can 00:06:14.600 --> 00:06:17.139 only use Class B weapons if the enemy is using 00:06:17.139 --> 00:06:20.420 Class B weapons. Exactly. It completely ignores 00:06:20.420 --> 00:06:23.779 the messy reality of violence. A knife is a lethal 00:06:23.779 --> 00:06:27.439 weapon. At close range, a knife is arguably as 00:06:27.439 --> 00:06:30.540 dangerous as a gun. Absolutely. To say that a 00:06:30.540 --> 00:06:32.899 victim must essentially match the weaponry of 00:06:32.899 --> 00:06:35.399 their attacker to justify saving their own life 00:06:35.399 --> 00:06:38.620 is just absurd. It implies Mancilla should have 00:06:38.620 --> 00:06:40.819 engaged in a knife fight to be legally in the 00:06:40.819 --> 00:06:42.399 right. Or what? That he should have let them 00:06:42.399 --> 00:06:44.879 stab him a little bit before firing? It puts 00:06:44.879 --> 00:06:47.199 this insane burden of calculation on the victim 00:06:47.199 --> 00:06:49.500 in a split second life or death moment. Right. 00:06:49.620 --> 00:06:52.899 It demands this calm, rational calculation of 00:06:52.899 --> 00:06:55.500 ballistics and weaponry equality while adrenaline 00:06:55.500 --> 00:06:58.259 is literally dumping into your system. But here 00:06:58.259 --> 00:06:59.920 is the part that makes this a scandal rather 00:06:59.920 --> 00:07:02.699 than just a bad, rigid ruling. The zombie element. 00:07:02.860 --> 00:07:05.879 The zombie element. This specific, rigid interpretation 00:07:05.879 --> 00:07:08.500 of the law of proportionality, the idea that 00:07:08.500 --> 00:07:11.100 the weapons must be strictly similar, came from 00:07:11.100 --> 00:07:13.899 a law that had been repealed in 2003. Wait. Let 00:07:13.899 --> 00:07:15.420 me just check the timeline here for a second. 00:07:15.519 --> 00:07:18.600 The shooting is January 2012. The lot was repealed 00:07:18.600 --> 00:07:21.680 in 2003. Nine years earlier. So the judge is 00:07:21.680 --> 00:07:25.300 basing a murder charge and actual physical imprisonment 00:07:25.300 --> 00:07:27.939 on a statute that hadn't existed for almost a 00:07:27.939 --> 00:07:31.079 decade. Correct. The penal code had been updated 00:07:31.079 --> 00:07:33.819 to focus on rational necessity rather than strict 00:07:33.819 --> 00:07:36.399 proportionality. The new standard essentially 00:07:36.399 --> 00:07:39.199 asked, was it rational to use the weapon you 00:07:39.199 --> 00:07:42.620 had to stop the threat? And the answer is obviously 00:07:42.620 --> 00:07:45.480 yes. Yes, obviously. But the judge was operating 00:07:45.480 --> 00:07:48.300 on old firmware. This is what you meant by legal 00:07:48.300 --> 00:07:51.699 inertia. It's terrifying. It suggests that a 00:07:51.699 --> 00:07:54.180 judge, someone who holds the power to strip a 00:07:54.180 --> 00:07:56.480 citizen of their freedom, wasn't keeping up with 00:07:56.480 --> 00:07:58.899 the basic updates to the penal code. She was 00:07:58.899 --> 00:08:01.920 enforcing a phantom rule. And for Gaston Mancilla, 00:08:02.060 --> 00:08:04.720 that phantom rule meant sitting in a cell. The 00:08:04.720 --> 00:08:06.620 psychological toll of that must have been just 00:08:06.620 --> 00:08:08.899 immense. You know you're innocent. You know you 00:08:08.899 --> 00:08:10.680 have the permit. But the person in the robe says 00:08:10.680 --> 00:08:14.040 no. And that profound feeling of helplessness 00:08:14.040 --> 00:08:16.579 is what triggered the explosion of public outrage. 00:08:17.279 --> 00:08:20.180 This case went viral before going viral was really 00:08:20.180 --> 00:08:22.860 the standard terminology we use for legal cases. 00:08:23.100 --> 00:08:26.040 It started with the family. Obviously, they staged 00:08:26.040 --> 00:08:27.920 demonstrations outside the court. But it quickly 00:08:27.920 --> 00:08:29.959 went way beyond just the family. This became 00:08:29.959 --> 00:08:32.580 a symbol for basically every student in Peru. 00:08:32.840 --> 00:08:35.259 It did. The academic community mobilized completely. 00:08:35.620 --> 00:08:38.080 Manuel Asma, the dean of the education faculty 00:08:38.080 --> 00:08:40.840 where Mancilla studied, stepped up. He didn't 00:08:40.840 --> 00:08:43.379 just write a strongly worded letter. He physically 00:08:43.379 --> 00:08:46.000 went to the legal front lines. And his classmates. 00:08:46.600 --> 00:08:49.840 We're furious. We have quotes from Marco Hargis 00:08:49.840 --> 00:08:52.220 Romero, fellow student, calling the decision 00:08:52.220 --> 00:08:55.039 arbitrary and unbelievable. You can really feel 00:08:55.039 --> 00:08:57.259 the shock in their reaction. It shattered their 00:08:57.259 --> 00:08:59.769 belief in the system. That shock is exactly what 00:08:59.769 --> 00:09:01.649 pushed this out of the courts and into the political 00:09:01.649 --> 00:09:04.529 sphere. And this is rare, frankly. Usually, politicians 00:09:04.529 --> 00:09:07.129 try to stay far away from specific ongoing judicial 00:09:07.129 --> 00:09:09.370 matters because of the separation of powers. 00:09:09.570 --> 00:09:11.730 You don't want Congress telling judges how to 00:09:11.730 --> 00:09:14.129 rule. Right. It sets a bad precedent. But here, 00:09:14.309 --> 00:09:17.450 the error was so egregious that the firewall 00:09:17.450 --> 00:09:20.360 just came completely down. It was a bipartisan 00:09:20.360 --> 00:09:24.379 pylon. You had Congressman Renzo Rigiardo openly 00:09:24.379 --> 00:09:27.200 criticizing the judge on the record. You had 00:09:27.200 --> 00:09:29.820 Congressman Victor S. Garcia Bellamunda calling 00:09:29.820 --> 00:09:32.559 the imprisonment an abuse and demanding sanctions. 00:09:32.899 --> 00:09:34.399 S. Garcia Bellamunda actually went straight to 00:09:34.399 --> 00:09:36.360 the OCMA, right? The Office of the Control of 00:09:36.360 --> 00:09:39.129 the Magistrate. Yes. That's... essentially internal 00:09:39.129 --> 00:09:42.070 affairs for judges. He basically said, this isn't 00:09:42.070 --> 00:09:44.909 just a mistake, this is misconduct. And Congressman 00:09:44.909 --> 00:09:48.169 Juan Diaz -Dios joined Dean Asmat to actually 00:09:48.169 --> 00:09:51.970 present a writ of habeas corpus on Mancilla's 00:09:51.970 --> 00:09:54.509 behalf. I want to dig into habeas corpus for 00:09:54.509 --> 00:09:56.830 a moment. We hear the term all the time on TV 00:09:56.830 --> 00:09:59.629 dramas, but what does it actually signal in a 00:09:59.629 --> 00:10:01.950 real case like this? Well, habeas corpus literally 00:10:01.950 --> 00:10:04.929 translates to that you have the body. It is a 00:10:04.929 --> 00:10:07.009 fundamental legal recourse that challenges the 00:10:07.009 --> 00:10:09.470 actual legality of a detention. It is your break 00:10:09.470 --> 00:10:11.590 glass in case of emergency tool. You are asking 00:10:11.590 --> 00:10:13.509 a higher court to look at the detention and say, 00:10:13.610 --> 00:10:16.190 there is no legal basis for this person to be 00:10:16.190 --> 00:10:18.889 in jail. Release them. And usually that's reserved 00:10:18.889 --> 00:10:21.330 for when someone is held without charge or held 00:10:21.330 --> 00:10:24.460 past a legal deadline. But here they were using 00:10:24.460 --> 00:10:26.620 it to attack the core reasoning of the judge. 00:10:26.860 --> 00:10:29.919 Exactly. They were arguing that a detention based 00:10:29.919 --> 00:10:33.460 on a repealed law is by definition an illegal 00:10:33.460 --> 00:10:36.379 detention. It's a very powerful argument. So 00:10:36.379 --> 00:10:38.080 the pressure is just mounting from all sides. 00:10:38.200 --> 00:10:40.019 You have students in the street. The media is 00:10:40.019 --> 00:10:42.799 running the story 24 -7 and congressmen are filing 00:10:42.799 --> 00:10:45.720 briefs. The system had to blink. And it did. 00:10:45.799 --> 00:10:48.440 The timeline is incredibly compressed here. The 00:10:48.440 --> 00:10:51.759 shooting was January 7th. By January 12th, a 00:10:51.759 --> 00:10:54.220 new order comes down. This time from Judge Juan 00:10:54.220 --> 00:10:56.679 Carlos Aranda Giroldo. Right, from the second 00:10:56.679 --> 00:10:59.360 penal court. He reviews the habeas corpus and 00:10:59.360 --> 00:11:01.419 the facts, and he revokes the detention order 00:11:01.419 --> 00:11:03.759 entirely. He sends the notification straight 00:11:03.759 --> 00:11:06.340 to Jose Luis Perez, the head of the National 00:11:06.340 --> 00:11:08.940 Penitentiary Institute, the INPE. And on January 00:11:08.940 --> 00:11:12.620 13th, Gaston Mancia walks out of prison. Amidst 00:11:12.620 --> 00:11:15.309 total jubilation. There are photos from the day 00:11:15.309 --> 00:11:17.309 of him being lifted onto people's shoulders. 00:11:17.590 --> 00:11:19.990 It was a massive victory for him, but also a 00:11:19.990 --> 00:11:22.409 victory for the public who felt like they had 00:11:22.409 --> 00:11:25.110 successfully checked a broken system. But the 00:11:25.110 --> 00:11:27.450 story doesn't end with him walking out into the 00:11:27.450 --> 00:11:29.970 sunshine. We really have to talk about Judge 00:11:29.970 --> 00:11:33.149 Asuncion Pumalion. Because her reaction to all 00:11:33.149 --> 00:11:36.070 of this is, well, it's a fascinating study in 00:11:36.070 --> 00:11:38.389 human psychology. It really is. On the exact 00:11:38.389 --> 00:11:41.710 same day Mancilla is released, the OCMA suspends 00:11:41.710 --> 00:11:44.629 her. They initiate a formal disciplinary process. 00:11:45.090 --> 00:11:48.470 Now, most people in that position would go silent. 00:11:48.809 --> 00:11:51.549 Lawyer up, stay quiet, hope the news cycle moves 00:11:51.549 --> 00:11:54.230 on. She did the exact opposite. She went on national 00:11:54.230 --> 00:11:57.929 TV. She appeared on the TV program 90 Seconds. 00:11:57.929 --> 00:12:00.610 Yeah. And she was incredibly defensive. She point 00:12:00.610 --> 00:12:02.830 blank refused to admit she made a mistake. She 00:12:02.830 --> 00:12:05.629 gave us that famous quote, I am not inept. I 00:12:05.629 --> 00:12:08.450 am not inept. Which, historically speaking, is 00:12:08.450 --> 00:12:10.110 a phrase that if you find yourself having to 00:12:10.110 --> 00:12:11.809 say it on television, you've probably already 00:12:11.809 --> 00:12:13.950 lost the argument. Definitely. But she doubled 00:12:13.950 --> 00:12:16.269 down. She claimed her ruling was an appealable 00:12:16.269 --> 00:12:18.929 jurisdictional decision. Which is basically legal 00:12:18.929 --> 00:12:21.690 translation for, if I was wrong, let the appeals 00:12:21.690 --> 00:12:24.820 court fix it. Don't blame me. Exactly. She was 00:12:24.820 --> 00:12:27.259 trying to frame it as a mere difference of legal 00:12:27.259 --> 00:12:30.860 opinion rather than a glaring factual error about 00:12:30.860 --> 00:12:33.500 which laws were currently in effect. And incredibly, 00:12:33.740 --> 00:12:37.460 she even denied using the repealed law of proportionality 00:12:37.460 --> 00:12:39.940 in her interview, which directly contradicted 00:12:39.940 --> 00:12:41.879 the written records of the case. That is the 00:12:41.879 --> 00:12:44.120 part that gets me, the gaslighting. The official 00:12:44.120 --> 00:12:46.320 court documents say one thing, but on TV she 00:12:46.320 --> 00:12:48.970 says, I never said that. It really shows the 00:12:48.970 --> 00:12:51.190 difficulty of holding the judiciary accountable. 00:12:51.470 --> 00:12:54.210 Even when caught red handed applying a dead law, 00:12:54.409 --> 00:12:56.990 her instinct was to protect her status and authority 00:12:56.990 --> 00:12:59.870 rather than apologize to the young man she illegally 00:12:59.870 --> 00:13:02.559 imprisoned. But eventually she resigned. She 00:13:02.559 --> 00:13:05.240 did. She tendered her resignation, presumably 00:13:05.240 --> 00:13:07.899 to avoid the utter humiliation of being fired. 00:13:08.299 --> 00:13:10.580 But our sources note that the investigation against 00:13:10.580 --> 00:13:13.179 her continued regardless. Resigning doesn't just 00:13:13.179 --> 00:13:15.320 magically absolve you of administrative liability. 00:13:15.759 --> 00:13:18.320 So we have a resolution. Mancilla is free. The 00:13:18.320 --> 00:13:20.759 judge is out. The zombie law is put back in its 00:13:20.759 --> 00:13:23.460 grave. But when you look at this case as a whole, 00:13:23.659 --> 00:13:26.620 what is the lingering lesson here? Because to 00:13:26.620 --> 00:13:29.379 me, it feels like Mancilla was the perfect victim. 00:13:29.759 --> 00:13:31.779 That is the key takeaway. Think about the checklist 00:13:31.779 --> 00:13:34.720 of his circumstances. He was a university student, 00:13:34.899 --> 00:13:37.360 which makes him sympathetic. He had a valid permit, 00:13:37.559 --> 00:13:40.100 making him legally sound. He had an eyewitness 00:13:40.100 --> 00:13:43.139 to provide corroboration. And he had a dean and 00:13:43.139 --> 00:13:45.379 multiple congressmen willing to fight for him. 00:13:45.440 --> 00:13:47.440 He had connections. Right. But if you take away 00:13:47.440 --> 00:13:49.899 any one of those things. If he had been a dropout, 00:13:49.960 --> 00:13:52.100 or if he had been working a blue -collar job 00:13:52.100 --> 00:13:55.230 with no academic dean to vouch for him. What 00:13:55.230 --> 00:13:57.870 if he had just lost his permit paperwork in the 00:13:57.870 --> 00:13:59.769 scuffle? He would probably still be in jail. 00:13:59.950 --> 00:14:02.769 Or he would have spent years and thousands of 00:14:02.769 --> 00:14:04.669 dollars fighting a murder charge from inside 00:14:04.669 --> 00:14:07.470 a cell. Exactly. The system worked eventually, 00:14:07.669 --> 00:14:10.549 but it required an extraordinary amount of external 00:14:10.549 --> 00:14:13.649 force to correct itself. That is not how justice 00:14:13.649 --> 00:14:16.309 is supposed to function on a daily basis. Justice 00:14:16.309 --> 00:14:18.870 shouldn't require a national media firestorm 00:14:18.870 --> 00:14:21.330 just to get a judge to read the current year's 00:14:21.330 --> 00:14:23.850 penal code. It also highlights the fragility 00:14:23.850 --> 00:14:27.230 of the concept of self -defense. We tend to think 00:14:27.230 --> 00:14:29.909 of it as a magical shield. I was defending myself, 00:14:30.169 --> 00:14:33.269 so I'm safe. But this case shows you that self 00:14:33.269 --> 00:14:36.350 -defense is an affirmative defense. You're basically 00:14:36.350 --> 00:14:38.970 standing up and admitting, yes, I did the shooting, 00:14:39.090 --> 00:14:41.230 and then you have to prove... But I had a really 00:14:41.230 --> 00:14:43.769 good reason. And that good reason is entirely 00:14:43.769 --> 00:14:46.450 subject to the interpretation of a human being 00:14:46.450 --> 00:14:49.710 in a robe who might be having a bad day or who 00:14:49.710 --> 00:14:52.309 might not have read the memo that the law fundamentally 00:14:52.309 --> 00:14:55.529 changed in 2003. It's a sobering reality check. 00:14:55.830 --> 00:14:58.190 Being in the right isn't always enough. You also 00:14:58.190 --> 00:15:00.529 have to survive the system's interpretation of 00:15:00.529 --> 00:15:02.870 your actions. And that brings us right back to 00:15:02.870 --> 00:15:05.809 the attacker's alias, Nino Viejo. The system 00:15:05.809 --> 00:15:08.330 was very quick to process him as a known criminal, 00:15:08.429 --> 00:15:10.230 but when a law -abiding student entered the machinery, 00:15:10.470 --> 00:15:13.070 it ground him up just as fast. The bureaucracy 00:15:13.070 --> 00:15:15.169 couldn't distinguish between the predator and 00:15:15.169 --> 00:15:17.590 the prey. Gaston Manseil eventually got his life 00:15:17.590 --> 00:15:20.629 back. But that week in January 2012 serves as 00:15:20.629 --> 00:15:22.990 a permanent warning label on the justice system 00:15:22.990 --> 00:15:25.350 of that era. It's a stark reminder that laws 00:15:25.350 --> 00:15:28.029 on paper are completely meaningless if the people 00:15:28.029 --> 00:15:30.470 enforcing them are incompetent. I'll leave you 00:15:30.470 --> 00:15:33.309 with a final thought to mull over today. We always 00:15:33.309 --> 00:15:36.190 ask, who watches the Watchmen? But in this case, 00:15:36.269 --> 00:15:38.909 the question is a bit more specific. When the 00:15:38.909 --> 00:15:41.090 referee creates a rule that doesn't exist just 00:15:41.090 --> 00:15:44.029 to penalize a player, and the game is your actual 00:15:44.029 --> 00:15:47.610 life, what is your recourse? In 2012, the recourse 00:15:47.610 --> 00:15:50.129 was to scream until the wall shook. But that's 00:15:50.129 --> 00:15:52.850 not a legal strategy. That's desperation. And 00:15:52.850 --> 00:15:55.029 hopefully, looking back at a deep dive like this 00:15:55.029 --> 00:15:57.309 helps ensure that desperation isn't the only 00:15:57.309 --> 00:15:59.009 option next time. Thanks for listening.