Before cameras, courtroom sketch artists served a purpose. Even now, a sketch artist can provide visuals to accompany reporting of trials when no other form of recording during court sessions is allowed.
The artists try to stay close to what the defendant, witnesses, and everyone else look like, but they can sometime veer into the caricature, as Luigi Mangione has found during his heavily publicized court appearances.
Mangione, who is accused of murdering former United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson last December, appeared in court last week. He had some things to celebrate, as the judge dismissed the charges of terrorism that had been added to his case.
But people noticed that one thing was not so nice about his court appearance: this drawing of him by the court sketch artist.
Mangione appeared in a tan prison jumpsuit, with handcuffs on and shackles on his feet. The fact that people could see pictures of him in the courthouse and the sketch made the sketch's mistakes even more glaring.
What's with that neck?
Some people ragged on the artist's ability to draw normal human proportions.
Many of Mangione's supporters maintained on social media that this is part of a larger effort to make him less appealing to the common man. This would include deliberately making him less handsome, which is only a small reason why he has taken on minor folk-hero status after his arrest for the alleged murder.
It was not subtle.
Why do we still have court artists these days, especially for courts that are not off limits to cameras or press?
Perhaps highlighting the bias that some people found in Mangione's sketch was the same artist's renderings of others in the courtroom.
Mangione has garnered sympathy for what many deem, if he's actually guilty, an act of economic justice, albeit a very violent one. The multi-state manhunt and publicity stunt perp walk with many armed guards, people said, were just plain overkill.
Supporters of Mangione were firm, though, that no sketch artist was going to change their view of him, folk-hero, handsome, or not.
Mangione could face life in prison for the remaining charges against him.
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